


Eyes on the Future

by theybecameanimagi



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Family, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 04:43:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12225993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theybecameanimagi/pseuds/theybecameanimagi
Summary: It's been a busy three years for Sara Ryder and the people she loves. The quarian ark has been found, Gil has a rambunctious two year old, and not to mention a cure was found for Sara and Scott's mother, who has now been awakened from stasis. Things were already feeling like a dream when Liam asked her to marry him, but that dream was shattered when a terror threat forced them to postpone the wedding. Now, Sara must hunt down the criminals who tried to kill her and her loved ones; not to mention keep everyone she loves safe until this threat is contained...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The big day is finally here! I've got lots of people to thank, so just hold tight while I get that done! Thank you to my artist, Chenria, AMAZING job; my beta, GuileandGall, for putting up with this story's many growing pains; to our mod Azzy for organizing everything; to my buddy, larxenethefirefly, for encouraging me when things got rough!

Ellen Ryder gently fastened the last of the hairpins, which had lain on the white wooden vanity, into Sara’s red hair. A light and carefree smile crossed Ellen’s face as she analyzed Sara carefully, making sure Sara’s makeup and the twist of her hair looked absolutely flawless. Sara stared back at her reflection. Normally, she considered it a lot of fuss to put effort into doing her hair, but sometimes you had to make sacrifices for big occasions. The effect, her hair up and little escaped hair whispies curled, made her look elegant. She actually liked it a lot. Far too much effort for everyday, but for today, she actually looked beautiful.

She’d say she couldn’t believe today was the day, but given that her Mom had spent two hours putting her hair up, only to shake her head and mumble about how it wasn’t _perfect_ , only to take it down, and put it back up again--today was definitely the day. Her wedding day to Liam was finally here.

_Today!_

“I think we’re done,” Ellen said, smiling back at Sara’s reflection. _Finally_ . Sara’s scalp ached from the last time Mom insisted they pull it into a bun _again_. Between that and the fact that she wore ten times the amount of makeup she normally did while out on Pathfinder duties, it would be a relief to head home with Liam. After the ceremony, and the punch, and the cake, and the dancing, it would be so nice to kick off her shoes, rise off the makeup, and to just enjoy cuddling on the couch with her new husband.

And that would be _soon_! The wedding was at 10am and it was nearly 9:30! Sara’s smile in the mirror widened.

Ellen wrapped an arm around Sara’s neck, squeezing her shoulder gently. “Today’s the day. My little girl is getting married! I wish ... I wish--”

Ellen’s eyes filled with tears. Ellen turned away in order to pretend to rummage through her purse as though searching for something.

Sara knew what was _really_ happening.

After years of Dad letting them down, Mom putting on a brave face was second nature to Sara. Her Mom might want to hide it--the pain that Dad wasn’t here to today--but Sara knew. She appreciated Mom wanting to keep today a happy day, but at the same time, she wished her Mom would be more open with her feelings. Mom had been strong for everyone else the whole time Sara had known her. Now that she was out of stasis, she shouldn’t have to feel that way—she should let the twins look after her every now and then.

“Ah, Mom,” Sara said, resisting the urge to cry herself. She reached up and grabbed Ellen’s arm. “Don’t cry. You’ll make me cry and then I’ll ruin my makeup and we’ll have to do it all over again.” It was a joke, of course. In reality, she just hated to see Mom sad.

And Mom should be as happy today as Sara was. Yes, Dad wasn’t here, but Mom _was_ . A few years ago, Sara had thought she would never see her mother again. She had told her mother goodbye in a sterilized blindingly white hospital room, and had assumed that was it--Mom would never get to met the person Sara would fall for, wouldn’t be there when Sara got married, would never met Sara’s children. No more Mom, _ever_ , no matter how unfair it had been that she had died when Sara had still needed her.

And then she’d unlocked Dad’s memory triggers and had found out the truth. Mom was alive. Their family could have a future: her, Mom, and Scott, just like it had been when she was a kid. Yes, she _was_ upset Dad wasn’t here, but growing up, it had always been the three of them. She regretted that she and Alec couldn’t have been closer, but she didn’t want his death to keep Mom from enjoying this day. She and Scott were here today, and, for Sara, that was enough.

It had taken two years to find a cure for her mom. Sara had finally been about to give up, when they had found a piece of remnant technology that could heal neurodegenerative illnesses. Then there had been another six months that Sara and Scott had waited impatiently for the technology to be useable on human beings. Finally, six months ago, they’d finally been able to wake Ellen up.

“Sorry,” Ellen said, blinking furiously. She pulled out a small tube of hand lotion and rubbed some on her hands, even though Sara had already seen her apply some lotion twenty minutes ago. “I’m just so happy and proud of you, Sara. I always knew you were going to do great things.”

Sara gave her Mom an encouraging smile, knowing that Mom wouldn’t bring Dad up today unless she did.

“I’m going to head into the bathroom and change into the dress,” Sara said, grabbing the plastic bag containing her wedding dress off a hook on the door of the bedroom they were in. “You can wait outside.” Hopefully that would give Mom a chance to cry a little without having to worry about bothering her.

Sara walked into the bathroom and pulled out the knee-length white lace wedding dress. Peebee had complained that Sara’s dress didn’t have enough _oomph_ to it, that the lace and the simple thin silk sash around the waist were too plain, and the pearl beading across the neckline were too boring for the Pathfinder’s wedding, but Sara disagreed. She was getting married on Eos, after all. If she wore a poofy ball gown that went down to her ankles, she’d likely die of heat stroke before she got down the aisle.  Not to mention the bottom of the dress would get a large coating of dirt on it.

Sara slipped out of the striped purple and white dress she’d worn to Cora’s house--Sara was grateful her friend let them use her place for the wedding--and slid on the wedding dress. She took a deep breath when she looked in the mirror and saw that it still fit her well. Whew, that was a relief. Some brides worried about gaining weight before the big day, but given how physically active her job as Pathfinder kept her, Sara had worried about losing too _much_ weight before her wedding. Sara had always loved being active—from exploring the Citadel with Scott as children, to fighting pirates in the Alliance, there was nothing like the rush of a good fight, the thrill of finding a new adventure. But it _had_ made the months leading up to today stressful.

But no, it fit, and nothing terrible had happened to the dress in the days leading up to the wedding. The number of nightmares she had had about it getting dropped in a puddle or a large pile of sand…

She pulled on the white flats she’d bought to go with the dress, again trying not to laugh as she remembered Peebee’s insistence that Sara should be wearing heels for the occasion. Fortunately, Cora had pointed out that Sara was getting married on a desert planet, and that sand and high heels didn’t mix well; and the argument had actually worked. After a brief, weak argument that Sara could always get married on someone’s deck, Peebee finally agreed with a huff that Sara not tripping her way up the aisle would definitely be a good thing.

Once ready, Sara opened the door back into Cora’s guest bedroom, and headed out into the hall, where Mom waited, eyes red but dry.

They both headed down the hall in silence to see how Sara’s bridesmaids were doing.

Sara opened up the door, worry knotted  her stomach at the thoughts of what trouble Cora, Suvi, and those helping them get ready--Vetra, Peebee, and Sid--might have gotten into while the bride prepared. Sara’s first thought, as she entered the room and everyone “Ohhh”ed at her dress, was to wonder what on earth Suvi had done to her bridesmaid dress. The dresses were supposed to be light blue, but Suvi’s seemed to flash different colors as she walked around the room. As it took on buttery shade of yellow, Sara noticed the brooch bearing gems in what Sara knew were lesbian pride colors since Suvi often wore those colors around the Tempest..

“Suvi, what did you do to your dress?” Sara asked, her eyes wide. No doubt Suvi had, in the pursuit of science, decided to alter her dress somehow to to make it cooler. It wasn’t like Sara blamed her or anything. Being raised by a scientist, Sara bore nothing but the upmost respect for science and those who strove to make everyone’s lives better--or just plain _funner_ in some cases--by working hard to understand how the universe worked. She was a biotic herself, as was Scott, and Mom’s implants had made their lives easier.

The dress was cool, Sara just hoped that it wouldn’t overshadow _her_ moment.

Maybe she was just being an overly stressed out bride, because Ellen’s mouth had formed an O in wonder.

“More like _how_ did she do it,” Ellen said, smiling approvingly at Suvi. “I’m jealous! She should have let me in on the color changing dress idea! That’s absolutely brilliant.”

So much for hoping Mom would have her back. _Scientists_.

“I might have made some modifications,” Suvi said, shifting awkwardly. The dress changed to a baby blue. “I got the idea after thinking about how Jien Garson’s dress at the launch party would change colors in response to sound.” She glanced at Sara, worry lining her features. “I know it’s your day and all, Sara. Don’t worry.” Suvi reached up and took off the brooch and her dress returned to the light shade of blue it was supposed to be. “Don’t worry, I just messed around with a motion sensor that would adjust the color of the dress. I had no intention of wearing it during the ceremony, just the reception for a bit of fun.”

Sara’s shoulders relaxed. _Whew._ What a relief to not have to worry about everyone staring at her maid of honor when they should be looking at _her_. A smile spread across her face. Now that she knew that Suvi wasn’t going to unintentionally outshine her, she appreciated the very neat broach. She had known, of course, that Suvi would never purposely try and sabotage her day, but everyone knew Suvi could get a wrapped up in a science project and forget to notice her surroundings at times.

“Thanks,” Sara said. “That’s still really cool though, could you teach me how to do that to everyday clothing?”

Suvi beamed, tension leaving her face now that Sara was happy. “I’d be thrilled too!”

“As long as you teach _me_ first,” Ellen joked. The trio all laughed. As Suvi and Ellen began talking about Suvi’s brooch, Sara turned to Cora, who was staring down at her dress, eyebrows drawn together and biting down on her lip so hard Sara couldn’t believe she wasn’t bleeding. Maybe it was a special type of lip gloss?

“I haven’t had to wear a dress since I joined the Alliance. Congrats, Sara, you’ve achieved the impossible.” Cora squinted down at the powder blue dress as though it was some kind of unnatural abomination, her fingers tugging at the lace around the sleeves. “Are you _sure_ this looks all right on me?”

“I think you look pretty, Cora. You don’t need to act so insecure about it. Deep breathing like a huntress. You got this,” Sara said truthfully. Sara hated that Cora seemed to think so little of herself. After Dad had died, Sara had relied on Cora’s guidance so much, and yet Cora always seemed so certain that _others_ had the answers. Sara would never understand that when she always went into battle with a feeling of serenity when Cora was around.

Cora straightened up, taking a deep breath. “Right.”

Peebee came bursting in followed by Vetra. She was wearing a long flowery dress-shirt and rose-pink slacks.

“All right people, we have five minutes! Suvi, Cora, chop chop!” Peebee scrutinized Sara, as always, working in the moment.

“You look beautiful, Ryder,” Peebee said, an approving twinkle in her eyes. “That outfit really has grown on me in time. Liam is going to freak out.” Peebee reached into a box nearby and started handing both Cora and Suvi the flowers they would be carrying while Vetra walked over and pulled Sara’s out of an etched crystal vase, where they rested.

“We’re close,” Ellen agreed, hanging her and Sara’s purses on a coat rack so they would be somewhere safe during the ceremony. “Anyone need anything, last minute? If you’ve lost your shoes, or need help with your hair, _speak now or forever hold your peace._ ”

Sara giggled. Vetra groaned. Suvi snorted. Peebee and Cora rolled their eyes.

“Sometimes I feel like Alec was the only one in the family, who _didn’t_ make jokes,” Cora said. “And that was _corny_.”

Ellen shrugged, unoffended at the critique on her humor. “I’ve only been out of cryo a few months. Still working on the humor. It’s a bumpy transition from hospitals and gloom and doom to _living_. I’ll get there.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Hey, can I talk to Sara?” It was Liam.

“No you can’t!” Ellen snapped. “It’s tradition, you’re not supposed to see her--”

“I don’t want to _see_ her,” Liam protested. “Well, I kind of _do_ , actually.” Sara could hear his smile just from the tone in his voice. His voice cracked a little in amusement. “But I can handle waiting for the surprise. Seriously, jokes aside, I just want to talk to her. Through the door so whatever gods of superstition that are watching don’t lose their shit.”

Ellen’s facial features relaxed. “All right. Can’t say Alec didn’t try the same with me.” Ellen walked over to help Cora fix the lace, where it had puckered due to her nervously picking at it. Sara walked over to the closed door. She smiled.

“You know, as excited as I am for this, hearing your voice makes me realize how much I miss you,” Sara said. “I feel like this whole morning has lasted an eternity. Doing hair, makeup. You guys have it easy. What have you, Jaal, and Scott been doing all morning, playing cards?”

“Har, har,” Liam said, a chuckle escaping his lips. “More like they’ve been trying to keep me from losing my lunch. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. Me and you, Sara, it just fits. And yet I’m so nervous. Can’t stop pacing the floor, worrying about what could go wrong.”

A smile tugged at her lips. “Nothing is going to go wrong, Liam. Everything about this day is out of a dream, and we’re not even at the ceremony yet. I get to marry the man I love, surrounded by all my friends. Hell, my _mom_ is here, and I didn’t think that would happen several years ago. Don’t let your nerves get to you now, Kosta. You know we’ve put plenty of thought and planning into this. We’re good.”

“Ha! You’ve clearly spent so much time with me I’m rubbing off,” Liam said, sounding amused. “But… I’m our crisis guy. It’s my job to think about what could go wrong, and how we avoid it.” He sighed. “I guess worrying is just in my nature.”

“Clearly,” Sara said, but she was interrupted by footsteps on the other side of the door.

“ _Really_ , Liam?” Sara heard Scott’s voice drifting from the other side of the door. “The wedding is in a few minutes and you couldn’t wait that long to see her?” Her brother sounded tired. She supposed dealing with nervous Liam all day (who intensely felt everything even on regular days) must be getting tiring by now. She, after all, was gladly signing up for it. Scott, however, was _not_.

“Not looking _at_ her,” Liam said. “Unless you think I’ve gained the ability to see through wood. _We’re just chatting through the door_.” He sounded quite tired of making the argument and Sara didn’t blame him.

“Yeah, well, it’s time for everyone to get into their places,” Scott said. Sara was pretty sure the thump she heard was Scott giving Liam a good-natured pat on the shoulder. “Sara, you good?”

“Ready to get this show on the road?” Sara said. “Both of you boys, shoo! I’ll be out in a bit.”

Sara heard the sound of both of them hurrying away, Scott still teasing Liam. “You really couldn’t wait ten minutes to talk with her?”

“Hey, your sister is simply a hard lady to stay away from,” Liam said.

“If you say so,” Scott replied.

Sara was pulled out of the happy sound of Scott and Liam teasing each other, by the sound of Ellen clapping her hands together.

“Well, you lot heard my daughter,” Ellen said, her voice full of mirth. “It’s time! Everyone, get to your places!”

There was a brief scuffle as Cora and Suvi hurried forward, and Sara glanced in the mirror one last time to make sure she looked good.

“You’re fine, sweetheart,” Ellen said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You ready?”

_For the wedding, yes._ Even though what was about to happen next was something they had planned out early on, it was still an emotional moment as she linked her arm with Ellen’s, trying to hold back tears.

“Dad should be the one walking me down the aisle,” Sara said, her voice breaking as Suvi and Cora left the house  and headed down the aisle. “Like, I’m thrilled to have you here, Mom, but Dad … You shouldn’t have to be filling in for him--” Her voice broke off. Under different circumstances, she might have laughed at the irony. Many times over the years, Sara had bitterly commented that Ellen shouldn’t have to do so much for her children, that Dad was a workaholic and an asshole who needed to step up more. And in the end, it turned out that he cared about Sara enough to _die_ for her. A person didn’t just _give their life_ for someone who didn’t matter to them, after all.

_He should be here for this._

Sure, it would have been awkward. Dad never knew what to say or he never said the right thing when it mattered. But he would care, and he would be here for _his_ moment with Sara. That would have been the important thing.

“Honey,” Ellen said, wrapping her daughter in a snug motherly hug. Sara blinked the tears away furiously as she buried her head into Ellen’s shoulder. “Your dad would be so proud of you. Everything you’ve done--facing off against the Archon, making Heleus livable for thousands of people. Everything he did as an N7.” She broke the hug with her daughter. “You surpassed it, and you’re only twenty-five. He would be so, so proud of you. And so thrilled that you found a man who cherishes you and makes you happy.” Ellen squeezed her daughter’s hand. “So, you ready to get married now?”

Sara nodded, tried to swallow a knot forming in her throat. She would just have to try not to think of Dad. All she would have to do was focus on her future with Liam, that was all. A future full of laughter and mix tapes, movies and smiles.

“Let’s go,” Sara said. They left the small home where Sara prepared and stepped out into the bright sun of Eos. It was hard for Sara’s smile not to get a bit brighter. She was glad they had picked Eos for the wedding. This had been the Initiative's first home. It represented how they had never given up, and it was the first real planet where everyone felt hope that things would get better.

There truly felt like no better place for her and Liam to join their lives together.

She and Ellen turned the corner and began their walk  towards Eos’ biggest lake, where everyone  gathered for the ceremony. Sara could see Scott whispering something to Liam, a slight smile on his face. Cora stood straight and attentive, even in a bridesmaid dress. Standing next to her was Suvi-- Sara was happy to see Suvi had kept her word and her dress was no longer flashing. Jaal glanced at the guests of the very human wedding with great interest--not surprising, Sara knew he had taken an interest in the cultural traditions behind human weddings when Sara and Liam announced their engagement.

Guests in the audience included everyone from Director Tann, who Sara had thrown a fit about having to invite. Ellen had tactfully pointed out that her supervisor would likely notice if Sara and Liam invited everyone _but_ him. Captain Dunn; Jill, Gil and baby Meri; Lexi; the three other pathfinders; and even Dr. Kennedy and David, who only recently turned three. Sara still couldn’t believe the sheer amount of people who showed up.

And it was a perfect day for Eos. Warm, but not so hot that Sara was sweating. The sun shone down through the cloudless sky and onto the lake, making sunlight bounce off of the waves.

And waiting for her, down the path the chairs carved out, was Liam. He wore his usual carefree smile, and it seemed to get a bit bigger when he saw Sara heading towards him. His eyes fixated on hers, and his expression seemed to say _welcome home_.

Sara’s smile grew a bit when she saw Liam. _Everything was perfect._

Sara and Ellen got the altar and Ellen gave her daughter a last smile before she went to sit with the rest of the _Tempest_ crew who weren’t in the wedding party. Scott gave Sara a smile wave and she wriggled her fingers back at him, grinning.

August Bradley, mayor of Prodromos, stepped forward to officiate.

“Are you two ready?” Bradley asked. He stood calm and collected, and yet he looked as he did to get up and deal with mayoral duties each day. Sara was glad she had picked Bradley to officiate her wedding.

_Pathfinder,_ SAM’s voice suddenly filled Sara’s head via their private channel. Sara frowned.. She hadn’t heard from SAM all morning other than a brief congratulations when she’d first gotten up. Sara’s muscles tensed. SAM wouldn’t massage her today unless something was really really wrong… It wasn’t just her being a pessimist. SAM knew not to bother her _now._

_I know that today is a momentous day for you,_ SAM said, sounding apologetic. _You do not need to respond out loud right now, only listen. I would not interrupt if this was not an emergency._

_There is a bomb planted under one of the docks, nearby. I did not notice this until you and Ellen got down the aisle and my sensors picked it up. I attempted to run a hack to see if I could disable it without having to involve you, but it is not responding to a hack. You will need to disable it manually._

Seriously? She had friends and family here. _This was a serious threat._ Sara knew from both her Alliance and Pathfinder days that she shouldn’t panic. She took a deep breath. Then another. They would have to be careful, yet swift.

She couldn’t believe this, some criminal decided to ruin her wedding day. Because _of course_ she couldn’t have one day of complete happiness with zero complications. She was a Ryder. Unluckiness seemed to be something they stumbled into without trying.

And who was even up to this and why her?

She could worry about revenge and finding the culprits later, first she had to let everyone know and make sure that her guests were safe. Sara cleared her throat.

“Apologies, but SAM has brought a problem to my attention and we’re going to need to address it before we can get the ball rolling,” Sara said, going with her gut. _What if the person who had planted the damn thing was nearby?_ Besides, blurting out “there is a bomb!” was something she had learned very early in her Alliance days was a stupid move: It would cause a panic. This would need to be handled discreetly, without worrying her guests. “We’re going to need to talk in private. August, Liam, Cora…” _Yikes, who else might she need for something like this?_ “Oh, and Mom and Suvi, you guys can come, too.” Should she bring Scott? No, if something went wrong… Scott could stay with the others were he might be safer. She had almost lost him to the Archon, after all. She hated to even get Mom involved in this. But she was a scientist. Explosives might not be her specialty, but between Mom and Suvi, they might be able to help. She hoped.

Sara kicked off her shoes and led her small band of followers down to the water’s edge. Scott watched from afar with interest, but  he turned away to address the crowd. Good thing she could trust her bother to take charge of the guests.

“Sara, what’s so important that SAM just interrupted our wedding?” Liam looked both hurt and confused. “This had better be life-or-death important.”

“It actually _is_ ,” Sara said “Now, please none of you panic when I tell you this. It sounds kind of bad, and I want to--”

“Just tell us already!” Ellen snapped. She looked like she was about to explode from anxiety. _Shit_ , and Sara was about to make it worse.

“SAM detected an explosive hidden beneath one of the docks nearby.” The response was as she’d expected.

“What!?” Liam said. “Who would do something like that?” No jokes, no comments about how “in this one vid I saw.” Just a look that said he wanted to punch someone in the face. Liam began to pace. The anguish contorting his features went well beyond the anger he had shown when the Nexus and the angara had refused to give him resources that would help the Initiative because he was an outsider. He curled and uncurled his fingers, restless with fury. Sara walked over and wrapped her arms around him, hoping to provide her fiancé with some kind of comfort. She rubbed her hand up and down his back, wincing at all the tension she felt in his muscles. Yet, all of the tension seemed to drain from Liam’s body at her touch and he snuggled into her arms.

“Hey, we got a good team, Sara,” Liam said, sounding like he was trying to reassure her as much as himself. “We’ll find whoever did this and bring them to justice. This can still be a good day.”

She hoped that was true.

Sara broke away from Liam to check on the others. Mom looked greener than Scott had the time he had eaten a whole bag of candy Mom had hidden in the closet in the guest room to use for Halloween when they’d been six. “Who would do something like that? Can we stop it? Should we evacuate everyone? People have brought their children to this wedding.”

Sara knew that, which, of course only made the stakes for solving this higher. She couldn’t have people like Gil and Jill or Kesh and Vorn looking at her accusingly for the rest of their lives because of the deaths of their kids. Sara would never get over that kind of guilt. But, judging by the way Ellen was glancing up at Scott a few yards away, and then back at Sara, the pathfinder knew her mom wasn’t just worried about other people’s underage children.

Sara put a hand on Mom’s shoulder. She had missed having someone worry about her and Scott like this. It had been lonely, before she had found a cure for Mom, going on Pathfinder missions—scary ones—and knowing that she wouldn’t have a hug from her mother to put an end to the nightmares the expeditions would induce.  “It’ll be okay, Mom, we’ll figure it out.”

August Bradley looked fairly calm. “We’ve dealt with terror threats in Prodromos before. Just tell us what we need to do and how to do it and we’ll get it done.”

“We all need to stay calm,” Cora said, crossing her arms. “My huntress unit used to deal with terror threats all the time. Panicking makes things worse.”

Suvi, as usual, looked intrigued and was tapping at her omni-tool. “What do we know about the bomb? What are its chemical properties? How long do we have until it blows?”

“That’s a good question,” Sara agreed. Ellen seemed to brighten a little and she walked over to Suvi, clearly eager to share notes with another scientist. “SAM?”

There were interrupted with Scott’s voice filling their comms.

“Hey, what’s going on down there? We got people asking questions and I need to tell them _something_ ,” Scott said. He sounded a little frustrated, maybe she shouldn’t have left him behind?

Sara decided a bit of the truth was better than nothing. “Tell them we’re looking into a security threat and to be patient.”

“A security threat?” Scott said, sounding worried. “What’s going on?”

“I can’t say, I don’t want to worry people,” Sara said. “We’re gathering more intel now.” She hated not being completely open and honest with her brother. She already wished she had his good observation and insight.

They would just have to do without. She had made up her mind.

“Fine, don’t tell me anything,” Scott said, voice bitter. Scott’s frequency switched off on her omni-tool.

Frustration with Scott’s attitude bubbled inside Sara, but she couldn’t worry about babying Scott right now, she had bigger problems. “SAM? That intel?”

SAM’s voice came up over her omni-tool, public now so that the small group gathered could hear, but also not broadcasted to the guests far away.

“The bomb is located underneath dock C, west 340 meters, far away enough so as not to draw suspicion to it’s placement, but not so far away that if it went off it would avoid hitting our gathering. Pathfinder, I am creating a holographic trail to follow so we can arrive at the scene faster. You may activate it via your omni-tool.” _Sigh._ When August suggested last year they build docks around the lake for boating to attract tourists, she’d thought it was a good idea.

_Now? Not so much._

She would have to talk to August about tightening security down here.

“According to my sensors the bomb was drafted with fuel used to power large Nexus shuttles, a particular blend that only the Initiative uses due the needs of this particular shuttle model,” SAM continued.

Sara activated the holographic tool SAM had set up to lead to the docks and followed the purple holographic person to the scene.

“How do you know only the Initiative uses it?” Suvi asked as they arrived at the wooden covered boat dock, her expression like that a of a student asking questions to prepare for a test.

“The gasoline from this explosive was originally drilled on Thessia then mined, boxed, and sent to Andromeda on Ark Leusinia,” SAM said. Suvi furiously hit buttons on her omni-tool. “You would need a scan for more details.”

“And when is it set to blow?” Sara asked.

“You have about ten minutes,” SAM supplied.  “You should be able to trace the explosive with your scanner.” Sara turned on her scanner and entered the boathouse, scanning until her scanner picked something up on one of the boats tied to the dock. Sara flung up the plastic cover on the motorboat and there was the bomb.

The device looked complex, with a touch screen and more buttons than Sara knew what to do with. The explosive looked way more complex than the ones Akksul had used three years earlier.

She glanced at the scientists on their team and then gave Liam a nervous look. “Mom, Suvi, do you guys think you can figure out how to disarm this thing?”

“Possibly,” Suvi said, kneeling down and examining the buttons. “Ordinarily, one person wouldn’t have a chance of defusing this in just ten minutes, but with both your mum and I working on it, we should be able to do it.”

Ellen nodded.

“Don’t forget me,” August said. “I’m military, remember? I’ve never personally deactivated one of those things since it wasn’t my area of expertise, but I know the theory thanks to a friend whose job was to disarm bombs. I’d be happy to help Drs. Ryder . Anwar.”

August knelt down and began to help the women examine the weapon.

“And I can offer them any assistance they may need via the _Tempest_ channel,” SAM said. “Dr. Anwar, if you open your omni-tool I am sending you diagrams of similar explosives listed in my database.”

“I’m going to patrol the area,” Cora offered. “See if I can find any clues nearby that might tell us who our culprit is or better yet, maybe get a clue which way they went.”

“You two relax,” Ellen called back to Sara and Liam, while punching buttons on the explosive. “You’ve both got to be quite upset right now, you just leave this to us. You two have been through enough today.”

_Great, we aren’t even allowed to help_. Part of her was frustrated, the other part was relieved. She wasn’t sure she had the energy to deal with the stress of figuring out how to shut it down. And then there was another bit of her—a part that she was ashamed of—that was tired of her having to be the one to solve things whenever something went sideways. She wasn’t a god. Sara was just one woman at the end of the day.

Sara leaned against the wall of the boathouse, letting out a huge sigh. It had only been a few minutes, but she felt like it had been hours. Her feet were coated with dust from her trip to the boathouse but she was glad she hadn’t had to walk all the way here in her shoes, which were cute, but also could feel a bit cramped at times. Sara felt… Not tired on a physical level. She was fairly fit and could handle herself. More like—mentally tired? She just wanted rest and to have a day go well for once.

“Hey,” Liam said. He seemed to have calmed down now that Ellen, Suvi, and August were hunched over the bomb trying to defuse it. The sight of her mother and her best friend literally hovering over a ticking time bomb didn’t make _Sara_ any less anxious, though. She hugged herself a bit, which inspired Liam step over and pull her into a hug. “We’ve got three amazing people working on fixing this. They can do it. Everything will be okay.”

That didn’t fix Sara’s desire to keep an eye on Suvi, Ellen, and August like her life depended on it, especially Ellen, given that she had already lost her mom once before. She just wanted for the people around her to be safe. For her crew and family not to have to risk their lives and for her to not have to risk her life. Even though she was too tired to deal with the problem herself, she hated watching the people she loved walk into danger. It might be for them as much as for her that they were risking all, but she couldn’t believe they still had to deal with these problems. When they had planned for this trip, she had expected to not have ordinary days for a while, but she had expected ordinary issues with settling an untamed land, and she had thought after a while that things would be normal. Colonist-normal, as Liam might put it.

Clearly, she had been naïve.

She snuggled onto Liam’s shoulder. “It’s not that I don’t think they can do it. I know we’ve got one hell of a military expert and we have two amazing scientists working on decoding it. I’m not worried that the problem won’t get fixed.” Okay, maybe she was worried for her friends and family, a bit, but that wasn’t all that was eating at her.

“Come on, talk,” Liam said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “We’re a team. You know whatever it is you have to say, I’ll listen.”

And it was Liam’s soothing, non-judgmental voice that got her to talk. “This was supposed to be our big day.” Sara said, swallowing. “If not for some terrorists we would be married by now.” Her voice broke a little and the docks and the lake beyond went out of focus as tears swelled in her eyes. “I’m just tired of _everything_ happening to me. I want to be normal.”

“Don’t get me started,” Liam said, picking up a rock off the dock and flinging it into the lake. It landed in the clear water of Eos with a plop. “I can’t wait to catch those guys.”

“And done,” Suvi said, flipping a switch at the top of the bomb.

Sara messaged Cora via comms. “Cora, we’ve got this thing disarmed, you find anything?”

“No, but I’ve let Scott, Vetra, and a small number of others know what’s going on and we’re starting a larger range search to see if we can find this person. They can’t have gotten far.”

“Got it,” Sara said, turning off comms.

“We’ll need to start interviewing people,” Liam said. “See if anyone’s seen anything out of the ordinary that might lead us to whoever’s responsible.”

“Hey, that can wait a day or two, Sherlock,” Ellen said. She crossed her arms and gave them both a stern look. “I meant what I said earlier. You’ve both had quite the ordeal today, you need to _relax_ , not stress yourselves with hunting terrorists! Go home, put on a pot of tea, watch a vid! _No investigating_.”

“I’m going to have to agree with Dr. Ryder,” a familiar voice chimed in. They all glanced at the door of the boathouse, where Lexi was standing. “You’ve both been under a _lot_ of strain today. I know neither of us will be able to stop you from investigating in the long term, but I’m going to at least recommend you two take the next two days off to give your minds a chance to process what happened.” Lexi let out a long-suffering sigh. “I know I lecture you about it in emails, but maybe it needs to be said in person. Illnesses like post-traumatic-stress disorder, depression… They _are_ real. You two need to take care of your mental health. As your doctor, I don’t want you to run yourselves into the ground.”

Ellen looked overjoyed to have someone agree with her. She walked over and put a hand on each of their shoulders. “We’re all going to be okay. Both of you get changed out of those formal clothes and I’ll walk you home, okay?” She gave both their shoulders a squeeze. The light touch made Sara feel as though a burden had been lifted. She didn’t have to feel duty-bound to look into this today, or even tomorrow. No one would judge her if she didn’t. _What a relief_. “Now, I’m going to go and find Scott and see how he’s dealing with all of this.”

Ellen left. August left as well, to see if the guests had been informed about what was going on yet, and Suvi hunkered down, still examining the device with a curious eye.

Sara and Liam silently headed up to Cora’s, where they’d both gotten ready for the wedding. Neither of them seemed to need words for their mutual disappointment over their cancelled nuptials. Given that she had actually died three times, she could say with certainty that she would rather die and be resurrected by modern medicine again, than ever face the crushing disappointment she was going through. Or maybe they were just both too tired to have anything to say to each other. Either way, it worked for Sara. She wasn’t in the mood to chat.

And she wasn’t just feeling heartbroken for herself. She could see the way Liam’s shoulders were slumped, the dejected way Liam stared at the ground, how he mumbled under his breath. (An oath of revenge? Anger at Mom and Lexi for making them take a few days off? Sara could only guess.) She longed to comfort Liam, but it was hard to muster up the energy when she mostly just wanted to lay down in bed and nap for a week herself. She wouldn’t even know where to start a conversation about what had just happened when she felt just as lost as him. How could she tell him to look on the bright side, that everything was going to be okay, when all she could think about was how it wasn’t okay? When she couldn’t find a bright side? It wasn’t just her and Liam that had been here today. Her crew her been here, Mom and Scott had been here, she had even told her crew to invite their families. How could she look Vetra or Gil or Drack or any of her other friends in the eye after today? After all the hard things she had been through—Dad’s death and Scott’s kidnapping only scratching the surface—you would think Sara would be a pro at comforting people, and yet she wasn’t all. Maybe dealing with a crisis was something no one ever “got used” to, at least on an emotional level.

Once inside, she headed down the hall to get her stuff. Upon reaching the room where she’d prepared that morning where she no longer had to worry about upsetting Liam, Sara let the tears fall.

Wasn’t she ever allowed to be happy? Losing her mom once, dying three times, losing her dad, losing her original career in the Milky Way, and now her wedding day was _ruined_. Maybe that joke she’d made while getting Morda’s drive core was right, maybe she was just naturally unlucky.

She pulled off the knee-length dress--trying hard not to think about how they should be making toasts her new marriage by now or dancing--and neatly hung it back on it’s rack, complete with the plastic sheet she had been using to keep it clean. Once the dress was safely put away, Sara changed back into the striped sundress she’d arrived in and pulled on the sandals she’d been wearing before she’d changed for the ceremony. She hated this. The whole moment felt like failure.

She melted into the chair in front of the vanity. At least she wasn’t out there, having to inform everyone that the wedding was cancelled. It would be awful to see the looks of pity on everyone’s faces, and anyway, that nap sounded more and more tempting by the minute.

There was a gentle tap on the door.

“Honey?” It was Mom. “Sweetheart, it’s going to be okay. I’m here now.”

It was the motivation of a hug from her mom that forced Sara to her feet, got her to walk across the room, and open the door. She fell into Ellen’s arms immediately, crying. She felt like a child, running into Mom’s bed after a nightmare.

“Today went all wrong,” Sara mumbled.

Ellen rubbed her back. “I know. And I know saying we can reschedule won’t make it better. Most girls dream about this day their whole childhood.” She stroked Sara’s hair. “It’s okay not to be okay right now.”

Through her blurred vision, Sara saw two other figures out in the hall. Judging by the dark skin on one of them, and the reddish strawberry blonde hair on the other, it had to be Liam and Scott. She broke away from her mother. Scott immediately ran over and pulled Sara into a hug.

“I’m so sorry about your big day, sis,” Scott said, all traces of resentment over not being able to help with the bomb earlier now gone. Hugging her brother, things almost felt like they would be okay. Almost. “Don’t worry about it, we’ll get whoever was up to this, they’ll pay, and we’ll reschedule.”

Liam, however, frowned. “We might need to rethink how to do this next time, huh? Maybe plan something more lowkey.” Leave it to Liam, their team’s crisis response expert, to think about how to do it again safely. She managed a smile for a fraction of a second. He was already making her feel a bit safer.

Doing something more lowkey.

The idea was just plain sad. Sara was well aware that being the pathfinder was dangerous, but she shouldn’t have to plan her wedding around having a dangerous job.

Why couldn’t something in her life have gone right, for _once_?

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Now that your family has left,” Liam said, locking the door firmly behind Scott and Ellen as mother and son walked away from Sara and Liam’s small house and across the yard to their own next door. No sooner had they stepped inside, than were they greeted by their black lab Calvin, who was all big smiles and a wagging tail. Sara reached down to rub Cal’s ears while Liam talked. 

“We’re heading out of town for the weekend,” Liam said, smiling at Sara and the dog. “You just pack yourself a bag, and we’re going. Just get yourself a duffle bag full of stuff for camping on Eos, and you’ll be good to go! I’m going to pack and get the tent and all that stuff ready!”

Calvin flopped down on the floor and rolled over on his back. Sara giggled and rubbed his belly.

“Can I help you get ready?” Sara asked. Liam was definitely busting his ass to make sure today was still a special day even with the detour, and she didn’t want him to feel like he had to go out of the way.

“Nah, I like spoiling you. Don’t worry about a thing!” His attitude was so infectious, Sara decided not to argue. She went to her room, Calvin snuggling up in a ball in his dog bed in the corner, and Sara changed into suitable camping attire--old jeans and a worm shirt.

Her mind went back to a camping trip she and Scott had gone on with their parents when they were twelve. They had fought over stupid stuff. Scott had pretended there was a bear at one point just to scare the shit out of her. Dad, despite being a workaholic, had lectured Scott about faking emergencies, and how that sort of idiocy was what got people killed.

After Sara  pulled her backpack out of her closet she messaged Scott on her omni-tool. Sara: _Hey, you remember when we were twelve and you pretended there was a bear lurking in the trees?_

She got a response almost immediately.

Scott: _You bet I do! Ah, I still remember your face! Dad was pissed, but it was totally worth it!_

Clearly, he had not learned his lesson like Dad had hoped.

Sara unzipped the backpack and headed over to her dresser and began sorting through pants she would need, once she found a few pairs that were old enough that she didn’t care if they got dirty for the weekend, she messaged Scott back.

Sara: _It was rare to see Dad that mad. ‘Pissed’ is putting it mildly, Scotty._

By the time he replied, she’d finished packing her shirts.

Scott: _Yeah, that’s ‘cause Mom was the disciplinarian._ _Dad was hardly ever around enough to get that_ _angry._

She pulled a good pair of hiking boots out of the closet and pulled them on before she replied to Scott.

Sara: _Can’t argue with you on that one._

Sara: _Ohhh, I think I can think of a time he came close to being that angry! Remember when we were six? Dad had barely been back from his tour of duty and he decided to take us sledding. Then you decided it would be a good idea to push me downhill before I was seated and ready to go?_

She packed a few pairs of underwear and her swimsuit while she waited for Scott to reply. Once finished, she zipped up her bag.

Scott: _OMG, I forgot about that! Why are you picking all the stories that make me look bad?_

She didn’t wait a second to answer that one.

Sara: _Because it’s my job to annoy you._ ;)

Scott: _Har har. You have a reason you decided to bring up all this embarrassing stuff, or you just felt like being a mean older sister?_

Sara: _Funny how you don’t admit I’m older unless I’m annoying you. :)_

Scott: _Answer the question, sis._

Sara: _Liam wants to take me camping for the weekend and I remembered the great bear incident and had to remind you. Also, we need someone to watch the dog while we’re gone_

Scott: _Ahh, have fun! I can totally watch Calvin while you guys are out of town. To be honest, I was kind of worried you were bringing up Dad because… he wasn’t here today. I’m sorry about that._

Sara: _Thanks for caring._ _It’s nice to_ _know I can always lean on my little bro during times of peril._

Scott: _Don’t doubt it! :) Have fun sis! I’ll leave you to have fun with your betrothed!_

Sara: _Thanks! See you later!_

Done packing and talking to Scott, Sara swung her backpack over her shoulder, put their lab in his crate where he’d be safe until Scott arrived, and went to go and find Liam, who was loading his own baggage when she found him outside in front of their shuttle. Liam, being amazing, took her bag the moment she stepped outside and put it in the shuttle. He was dressed in similarly ratty clothes that were perfect for camping--worn jeans and an old shirt with a phrase from _Star Wars_ Episode XXII on it.

“There you go. Luggage taken care of. No need to worry about that now,” he said. He counted off on his fingers. “All right. For a spur of the moment camping trip, I think I got everything. Tent? Check. Fishing poles? Check. Snacks? Check? Both our bags? Check.”

Sara loved how Liam could be so sweet and thoughtful. She stretched up and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m sure you thought of everything, and if not, Prodromos can’t be that far. Let’s _go_. I want to be alone with you.”

She stiffened. “Actually, wait a second, I want to get something from the house!” She hurried inside, grabbed the small packet from the drawer by her bedside table and hurried back out to met Liam. He squinted at the package.

“Seeds? I--er, I don’t think we’ll be doing any farming,” Liam said, crossing his arms.

Sara laughed. “Didn’t I tell you farming was _totally_ my ideal version of a romantic getaway?” She winked at him, and then straightened herself up a little. “Aww, I was just messing with you, Liam. It’s not for us. I’ve been wanting an upgrade for a biotic amp for my pathfinder helmet, and there’s a trader up in the plateaus who will sell me what I need in exchange for some rare seeds from the Nexus for his homestead.”

“Oh,” Liam said, confusion disappearing from his expression. “Well, if we run into the guy on our way, you can get the stuff you need for your helmet.”

“That’s the plan,” Sara said, tucking the seeds into her pocket. They both climbed into the vehicle and fell into a comfortable silence. Liam turned on some music. Sara was relieved that neither of them was bringing up the day’s events. It had been a long day, and now that she had time to process everything, she wasn’t sure she could think about how close she had been to dying. _Again._ And losing the people she cared about. She closed her eyes and slumped back a bit further into her seat.

Judging by the way Liam wasn’t humming along to the music like he usually did, he was mulling over the events of the day, too.

They followed the beaten dirt road for a while until they passed a trader with a small stand by the side of the road.

“STOP!” Sara yelled, and Liam stopped the vehicle on a dime. “Maybe she knows where the trader I want to met up with is. I’m sorry to keep hounding about this, but I’d at least like to look into this if we’re in the same area.”

“Got it,” Liam said.

As she closed the door, she heard whistling from the car. She chuckled. Hopefully that meant Liam was feeling a bit better.

Sara squinted at the trader she needed to speak with, a dust-covered asari whose back was turned to Sara. Sara crossed the sand, noting that the trader was hovering over a register counting money. Even as she was several feet away, Sara could hear her talking over comms. This was awkward. Should she turn back? Approach? She really needed to talk with this person, but she didn’t want to be the kind of customer that was so needy she demanded the merchant end the call and serve her now. It could be important, after all.

She would wait. She stood from a safe distance, hoping she wouldn’t catch too much of the conversation. Fortunately, or maybe not so fortunately, all she got were a few snippets.

“... Sorry I’m not making enough sales. Things would be better if I had better merchandise to offer hikers here to scale the cliffs. High-quality rappelling rope and jump jets.” Sara could hear the tension and frustration in the asari’s voice. “And most of the guns I have for sale have a low rate of fire.”

The response, from whoever it was, sounded just as annoyed as the trader. As it was coming in over comms, the second person was hard to hear. _Thank God_. She hated eavesdropping, even accidentally. “... Make do with what you have.... We can’t sparse more resources… We have people to feed.”

People to feed? Sara had to admit now she was curious. The Nexus had had food-producing outposts for years. The kind of strapped-for-money the person on the other end was talking about just didn’t happen anymore, unless maybe you lived in a bad neighborhood in Elaaden or Kadara.

“Wow, I had _no_ idea,” her reply oozed sarcasm. “I know harvest is coming, I’m no fool. We can barely afford seed right now. But sometimes in order to make money you have to spend it, and since you’re in charge of our budget office I thought I’d ask.” She shook her head. “Well, I guess this conversation was a waste of time.” She finally disconnected the call, and Sara waited a few moments before approaching so it wouldn’t look like she’d been spying.

Once the asari had been finished with the conversation for a few moments, Sara approached her. The asari’s ill-fitting armor hung off her lithe frame, like a child wearing their mother’s high heels.

The asari’s well-stocked stall of goods contained weapons, armor, and vehicle upgrades even some climbing equipment; however most of the weapons and armor were of lower quality than what Sara used. Maybe being Pathfinder just had her spoiled or maybe she just had more money to spend with a higher salary than what she’d once had in the Alliance.

“Hi!” Sara greeted. She didn’t want to be rude. Maybe it was just habit from when she’d worked in a clothing store on the Citadel in high school, but Sara couldn’t stand anyone who was rude to people who worked in customer service.

The asari beamed as Sara approached. “Hello! Welcome!”

“Nice, a vendor that sells climbing equipment,” Sara said, running a hand down a grappling hook the trader had for sale. “I’ve loved mountain climbing since I was a kid!”

“Well, Eos is a prime planet for it,” the merchant agreed conversationally. “Only planet that could beat it is Kadara.”

While Kadara was far better off than it was four years ago, most people still considered Eos to be safer, tamer. Technically, it might have better mountains to scale, but there were still the occasionally gang dealing in smuggling, drugs, the usual. Eos was more family friendly.

“My fiancé and I are on a camping trip,” Sara said. “I’m hoping we’ll get the chance to scale some good ones today. I’m Sara.”

“Lucy. It’s good weather for it,” Lucy gave a good natured laugh. “But I take it you didn’t come here just to discuss the merits of extreme sports with me. You here to buy? Sell?”

“Looking for a trader who sells out here, actually,” Sara said. “He has a rare biotic amp I want to trade for some seeds he’s looking for. He’s a farmer.”

Lucy’s cheerful face fell a little.

“Something wrong?” Sara asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing to concern yourself with,” Lucy said, biting her lip. “I just wish I had something of decent enough make to tempt you to trade with _me_ instead. I’m from a farming settlement and we’ve had a few--erm, setbacks. New seeds to plant in our greenhouse could give us a boost or if the seeds were useless to us we could trade seeds that lucrative for ones we do need.”

“Well, my need for a new amp isn’t that pressing,” Sara said. “You can have the seeds if you really need them.” Sara took them out of her jeans pocket. “This guy I’m going to trade with, his farming business exploded just six months ago. He’ll live.”

“Oh!” Lucy looked conflicted. “Those are expensive, I can’t just take them from you and give you _nothing_ in exchange.”

Sara laughed. “I’m the Pathfinder,” Lucy’s eyes widened a little, “and it turns out when you save the cluster from some really pissed off kett, you get a lot of good discounts. Don’t worry about it, if I really want more of those, I can get more. Although…” Her eyes landed on one of the better quality rappelling ropes. “You could trade it to me for one of those instead. Can’t have too many ropes and harnesses when you’re climbing.”

“I can work with that,” Lucy said, handing Sara the rope and Sara held out the seeds, which Lucy took.

“Nice trade,” Sara said, “I hope we met again.”

“Me too, Pathfinder, me too.”

Making a new friend had brightened Sara’s mood more than a new biotic amp would have, hands down. She shook the woman’s hand and went back to the shuttle.

“Find out where your guy is?” Liam asked her as she climbed back into the shuttle.

“No,” Sara said, shaking her head. “I gave them to that merchant. Her need was greater.”

“Ah, tough you won’t get your biotic amp,” Liam said. “But that’s life, huh? Sometimes you do the right thing--even if it hurts a bit.”

Sara shrugged. “She seemed like she had a lot going on. And she was really nice! It was nothing.”

Liam turned the music back on as they soared through the hills, up onto a plateau, and then down to a small lake surrounded by more mountains.

“We got water!” Liam said. “I think this is a good spot, don’t you think?”

It was. Filtering the water so it would be drinkable would be a priece of cake. And there were plenty of mountains to climb, plenty of space for them to set up camp. Definitely a fine place to camp.

“So, long as it doesn’t have bears, real or imaginary,” Sara said with a smirk.

“Imaginary bears?” Liam said, face scrunched up in confusion as he parked the car.

“My parents took Scott and I on a camping trip when we were ten,” Sara explain. “He thought it would be funny to scare me by pretending there was a bear lurking in the trees nearby.”

Liam laughed. “Ah, kids can be shits! How mad were your parents?”

“Well, you know Dad was an N7,” Sara said as they got out of the shuttle and began unloading the tent and sticking poles in the ground a few years away from the lake. “He was pissed. I mean, we all look back on it and laugh now” She feel silent. Talking about Dad was still kind of hard, especially since they’d had such a complicated relationship. He’d clearly loved them all, and yet had been so _bad_ at showing it... “What about you?” Sara asked, grasping for a topic change. Still, despite her effort to act calm, her voice still broke. “Freak out your parents much?”

“Much? More like always!” Liam said, laughing. There was a serious look in his eyes that told Sara he knew she was depressed and was sensitive enough to pick up on the fact that she was done talking about her dad for the day. “I told you how Mum didn’t like me messing around jump-jets? Well, she _really_ didn’t like the time some guys in HUSTL1 convinced me to do this crazy-high zipline! ...” They continued working on setting up the tent while telling stories of their families until they finished working on the tent. They went back to the shuttle, grabbed their sleeping bags  and remaining gear and dumped them inside.

“Oh, that sounds fun!” Sara said, grinning madly. They grabbed a pot and headed for the lake to get some water so that it could start filtering before nightfall. “But I’m from a family of adrenaline junkies, so that kind of thing wouldn’t have phased _my_ parents.” In fact, Alec and Ellen probably would have wanted to come.

Once they had the water filtering started, Liam gestured at a small plateau. “Not super high, but you game for climbing that, Sara Ryder?”

“Psh, that’s easy,” Sara said, grabbing her hiking stuff and heading towards the mountain Liam had gestured at, Liam a few feet behind her with his own gear. “But  a zipline sounds like so much fun! We should do that at some point.”

Liam grinned as they arrived at the base of the mountain. “My mum would come back from the dead to kill me, but it would be worth it.” He frowned at the mountain. “How can we make this more interesting?”

Sara frowned. “Please don’t let this be like the time I went mountain climbing with Vetra and she made me swear not to use jump-jets.” Her shoulders sagged a little at the memory. Still, she rubbed her hands together. “But I agree we could find a way to make this more interesting.” She glanced at her watch. “Sunset should be in about an hour. If we hurry, we could watch it from the top of that mountain. Totally cheesy romantic sunset viewing to follow.”

“We both know you love the cheesy romantic stuff,” Liam said.

“I do!” Sara used her jump-jets to propel her to a hard-to-get-to ledge, and Liam followed. She leapt to another one off to the right, and climbed up several feet of rock, trying not to grip too tightly or loosely.

“Whoa, you are good at this!” Liam said from several feet below Sara.

“Of course, I am,” Sara agreed, grinning down at him wickedly. “Dad took me mountain climbing as a kid.” _Way_ back in the days before he had retreated into his work. “The question is will I have to double back when I’m almost to the top to hurl your ass up this mountain, Kosta?”

“Ouch,” Liam said, wincing. “My pride is wounded, Sar.”

They continued scurrying up the mountain. The climb tired her out. As she neared the top, she used her jump-jets to launch herself the rest of the way up. She huffed and puffed while she waited for Liam to catch up. About a minute later he joined her, also panting.

“Whew!” Liam said, hands on his knees as he huffed. “That was rough. Glad we made it.” He clapped Sara on the shoulder.

“And,” Sara said, gesturing at the flaming sky, “we made it just in time for the sunset!” She collapsed onto the rough, rocky ground. Liam plopped down next to her and she snuggled into his shoulder. The sunset painted the horizon in beautiful hues of purple, orange, red, and a deep blue. The fall of the star covered the land and clouds in a fading, orange glow. Sara sighed with contentment as she leaned against Liam’s shoulder.

“This is exactly what I came to Andromeda for,” she said, smiling. She could feel the heat of Liam’s shoulder against her cheek and she sighed, reached down, and clasped his hand with hers. “A new home. And a new start, with people I care about.”

After watching the sunset for several minutes, they both agreed to head back to camp before it got too dark to climb down. A few minutes later, they were back on the ground.

“Now,” Liam said, laughing as they arrived back in camp as darkness began to cover the area. “We got to have smores. You can’t go camping with stuffing your face with a few. It’s like a camping law.”

“Oh, I agree,” Sara said. “Mom is a health nut, and Dad really had to fight to include smores on the list of food we took with us on camping trips.”

She and Liam broke into their food stores and soon thanks to a synthetic fire and some metal prongs, they soon had a few marshmallows browning.

“Scott is going to be so jealous when I tell him we had smores,” Sara said, laughing. “He loves chocolate, and given Mom’s strict ‘only for special occasions’ chocolate rule, we didn’t get it that often growing up. Oh, I can’t _wait_ to see his face.”

Liam laughed. “You two are close, I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”

“Probably,” Sara said. “So, you have any spooky stories you learned from your HUSTL1 pals?”

Liam then proceeded to tell a story about a time he had his friends had explored an abandoned grade school building for a dare while on holiday in uni. The building was properly creepy, with ivy crawling up the side, broken windows, and doors hanging off hinges. Sara screamed several times--although she often wondered if Liam was exaggerating in several places.

The rest of the evening was nice, swapping stories and eating chocolate--Sara had a few fun tales from her days killing pirates for the Alliance and Liam had more HUSTL1 stories. Sara had no complaints when Liam started yawning and wanting to head for bed. She changed into her pajamas and fell asleep immediately as her head hit her pillow.

She didn’t think about the terrorists once. It was hard to, alone with the man that she loved in the mountains of Eos, with pearly white stars shining down on their camp from a pitch black sky. All she did was fall into a peaceful, dreamless, sleep.

#

Until, of course, the sound of tossing and turning work her up in the middle of the night. Sara was up in a flash. At first she wasn’t sure what was going on, until she saw Liam next to her, sweating through his pajamas and mumbling words she couldn’t make out. He seemed to be having some kind of nightmare. Sara shook him gently.

“Liam!” She tried lightly shaking him again. “Liam, wake up!”

He opened his eyes with a start, and he sat up, panting.

“What… What…” He looked around the tent, clearly confused where he was. It was a moment before a look of recognition swept over his face. “Oh, right, camping.”

“You clearly aren’t okay,” Sara said, she reached up and ran a hand through his hair. “Do you want to talk?”

Liam hesitated before giving his answer. “I just—I guess it’s everything at the wedding getting to me.” He put a hand on her knee. “I know I don’t need to Sara, but… I worry about you. It wasn’t just _any_ wedding they attacked, it was ours, _yours_. It had to be some kind of message.”

“I agree,” Sara shivered. “I mean, with Dad’s career, I always knew as a kid not to take life for granted but—it’s shaken me up too, if it makes you feel a bit better.”

Liam nodded. “It does.” He laid back down. “Good-night, Sar.”

Sara didn’t fall back asleep until Liam started his usual snoring again

#

Camping had been the perfect way to cheer her up. The rest of the trip had gone-incident-free and they both returned to regular life reluctant to leave their own little retreat.

Sara fpimd that the break had been good for her. Once home, Sara felt ready to investigate the bomb threat at their wedding, and called a group meeting on the _Tempest_ to discuss their options.

There was a great deal of silence at the start of the meeting. No one seemed to want to bring up what Sara and Liam had gone through. Sara cleared her throat. She wished she had the confidence right now to pull an inspirational pathfinder speech out of thin air. Dad had done it so well before they’d left for Habitat 7. Even though she knew she was a successful pathfinder, his shoes seemed to loom before her, impossible to fill.

“We all know what happened,” Sara began, deciding to just start with the basics. She met the eyes of her crew and family, all gathered here in the meeting room to support her. “What we don’t know is _why_ this happened. Given the hugely important role that the pathfinder plays in the Initiative,” she said with a sigh. “It’s likely someone who hates me, the Nexus, or both. Does anyone have any theories they’d like to throw out there about who might be responsible?”

“Although Akksul has lost a lot of influence, has anyone considered Roekaar involvement?” Jaal suggested in his deep voice. “They would experience a great victory if the human pathfinder and important leaders on the Nexus all perished in one hit.”

He had a fair point.

“I know I haven’t been fighting kett as long as you guys,” Scott began. Indeed, after Scott had healed, he had asked for a transfer to a security unit on Prodromos while he recovered from the mental trauma he had suffered on Meridian. By that point, most of the kett had retreated due to the Archon’s death. He had only been back on the _Tempest_ for a few months now.  “but it’s not likely to be them, right? They’d want a bunch of salarians, krogan etc for exaltation? And most of them fled after the Archon died.”

“Probably,” Cora agreed. “And give us a huge speech about how lucky we’d be to be exalted.” She shuddered, her voice full of hatred. “This doesn’t feel like a kett crime.”

“Plenty of exiles have reason to hate the Nexus,” Vetra suggested. “Especially the ones who ended up on the wrong side of the final confrontation between Sloane and Reyes.”

“Huh, when you put it that way, I have a lot of people likely to line up to try and kill me,” Sara said. It was funny, as terrifying as the idea of that many people out to kill her was, it was easier to make a joke about it. It felt less real if she pictured a group of cartoonish-looking exiles, and maybe a few scorned Roekaar in a room talking about how they had to kill Sara because she was too big of a threat.

The attempt at humor clearly didn’t lighten the mood for her mom, who took in a sharp intake of breath. This whole discussion had her looking pretty pale. Sara reached out and squeezed her hand as Scott started talking again.

“The quickest way to find out culprit, would be to check in with supply officers at the outposts and see if we can get surveillance video from when the fuel for the bombs was taken. Then, we may be able to figure out what our thief looks like,” Scott suggested,

who by now knew most of Eos’ security set up pretty well.

“So, we all agree that’s our first goal?” Liam asked, looking around as though he was waiting for a show of hands. There was nodding and mass mumbling of agreement, but no hands. The group dispersed. Sara proceeded to send out emails to each of the supply directors about the possibility of stolen or misplaced chemical compounds specific to the device they’d disarmed on the docks.

Until they got video footage from the outpost supply directors, there was little Sara could do but wait.

Everyone else mostly appeared to be trying to get back to normal now that the meeting was over. Liam compared Milky Way vids to angaran films with Jaal. Mom wandered up to the bridge to talk science with Suvi, and while Scott appeared to be messing around on his datapad Sara noticed that her brother was watching her with a concerned look on his face. Sara quietly excused herself to her quarters. The last thing she wanted was another fight with Scott about whether or not he could help. She was a few minutes into mundane chores like making her bed, cleaning her mouse Ellie’s cage, tidying up her wardrobe by the time she hear Scott quietly enter.

“Hey, I hadn’t seen you around for a bit, so I thought I’d come check on you,” Scott said, looking worried. He held up two chocolate bars that Sara was pretty sure came from Aya and were fairly expensive. “I brought a snack to cheer you up. You know how chocolate is for us, it’ll be like old times.”

In high school, when Dad missed a soccer game or a recital, or after Mom had been diagnosed with her illness, the twins had unintentionally started a tradition of bringing the other chocolate when they were down.

“I’m fine,” Sara lied. “Although you know I won’t say no to good chocolate.” She took the candy bar, and hoped Scott would drop the subject of how she was doing. She was comfortable talking with Scott, but she didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, not even her brother. Sitting around in her cabin, watching sappy romantic movies, and feeling sorry for herself felt so much more appealing than talking about her emotions. This was terrifying and she didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. Forgetting her problems with a good movie and some popcorn until she got a reply to her email would just be easier. She could pretend this wasn’t happening to her.

“Hey, it’s me you’re lying to,” Scott said. “Your twin brother, remember?” He jammed a finger at his head. “Twin telepathy. I can _sense_ your bullcrap, Sara.” He unwrapped his candy bar, and then used his biotics to flick the wrapper at Sara’s trash can across the room. It missed by a few inches. Sara glared at him; Scott crossed his arms in a pout, but walked over and made sure the wrapper properly made it into the trash.

“Twin telepathy is BS and you know it, Scott!” Sara said with a giggle. While it was true that she knew her brother better than anyone else, it didn’t mean she could read his mind. Some people on board the _Tempest_ , like Drack and Peebee, seemed convinced she could though, which lead to rather amusing pranks.

Scott sat down next to Sara on her bed. “Doesn’t mean I can’t tell when my sister is lying.” He sighed. “You went through a hell of thing. Someone tried to kill you, to kill everything and everyone you love, on what was supposed to be the happiest day of your life. Want to talk about it with your favorite sibling?” Scott took a bite out of his candy bar and Sara was unsurprised to see that it had caramel filling on the inside. Scott’s favorite. She had brought him several packs of candy bars filled with caramel after Meridan.

“Mmm.” Scott closed his eyes, a look of pure bliss on his face.

Sara took a bite out of hers, and was thrilled to see Scott had remembered she liked her chocolate with nuts. “Just so you know, I am your _only_ sibling, dork, and don’t you forget it!”

Scott held up a finger for a second, chewing, then he swallowed before responding. “Even more reason to love me,” Scott grinned. “Joking aside, Sis, you can talk to me about this. I lived through Meridian, remember? Genocidal aliens penetrating my brain and trying to use me as a weapon? I know a thing or two about living through something traumatic. Something you shouldn’t live through _at all_ . So _talk to me._ ”

Sara’s eyes filled with tears, making her chocolate blur like something in a staticy old vid.

“It’s not _fair_ .” Sara’s voice cracked with a small whimper. “Isn’t _one thing_ in my life allowed to go off without a hitch? I mean, I didn’t do anything to deserve this! I helped make Heleus a _home_!” Tears poured down her face. She wiped them away and took a bit out of the candy bar in the hopes it would make her feel better. The chocolate was delicious, but she still didn’t feel any less hurt and afraid than she had seconds ago.

“I know,” Scott said. He wrapped an arm around Sara and pulled her close. She laid her head on Scott’s shoulder. “Don’t you think I felt the same way after I was kidnapped by the Archon? The same words went through my brain over and over. ‘ _Why me_ ? I wasn’t even _on_ the pathfinder team when any of it happened.’ That kind of thing. Feeling angry, violated, lost. You’re not alone, Sara.” He squeezed her shoulder gently.

As angry as she was about what had happened her, Sara suddenly felt guilty. Sure, having a  explosive planted at her wedding was terrible, but was it really all that bad compared to the torture he had suffered on Meridian?

“I’m sorry, Scott,” Sara said with a sniff. “I really shouldn’t complain after all you’ve gone through the past few years, trying to recover from what the kett did to you.”

“Ah, don’t stress over it,” Scott said, taking another bite out of his half-finished candy bar. “Suffering isn’t a competition, sis.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” SAM said. “But you have new email at your terminal, Sara.”

Both of the Ryder siblings jumped up as though they had been shocked and raced for her computer.

She logged into her email, so eager that she misspelled her password twice. Scott stuck his tongue out at her as she finally logged in. In her email, were messages from the supply directors from Eos, Voeld, Kadara, and Elaadan. Sara scanned the messages, eyes narrowing.

“Something wrong?” Scott asked. He elbowed Sara in the ribs to get a look at the screen. “Let me read it!”

“They’ve all had the components SAM mentioned go missing and they’ve sent footage, but several of those robberies were months apart _and_ at different outposts! There seems to be no common connection.”

“Except, of course, for the missing cargo,” SAM said from his router. “Perhaps the suspect planned these thefts at varied times and different locations in order for them to be overlooked in order to not draw suspicion.”

“Clever thought, SAM,” Scott said. “I guess all we do now is sit back and watch the footage they sent us?”

“Maybe with a little popcorn?” Sara joked as she played the first video. Everything looked pretty normal. Workers were unloading cargo at the docking bay on Eos, and into a pile to be sorted out.

“That worker in the corner,” SAM said. “The man with black hair twisted into a braid. Facial scans compared with personnel photos from Nexus records confirm that he was among the exiles who left the Nexus following the uprising. His name is Richard Morrison.”

“You sure that’s our guy, SAM?” Sara asked. She could feel her heart accelerating.

“This man seems a likely suspect, though there is no guarantee that he is working alone. In fact, multiple thieves would limit suspicion.”

The twins watched the rest of the video, keeping their eyes on the man with the braid. Towards the end video, they noticed him slip a large box labelled as Thessian gasoline into a truck marked outbound product while his co-workers were busy cleaning up a package that had broken open. Scott and Sara watched the other videos. In each one, there was a pattern: The man with the braid would slip a heavy box filled with Thessian gasline onto an outbound truck when his co-workers were distracted. Sara broadcasted her voice over the comms.

“Guys, Scott and I have a lead, met us up at the meeting room and we’ll discuss it.” Sara disconnected from the intercom. “SAM, forward Morrison’s profile to everyone’s omni-tools.”

“Forwarding Nexus records on Richard Morrison now.” SAM said. The twins hurried up the the meeting room, Liam at Sara’s side as soon as she crested the stairs, a huge smile spread across his face.

“I knew you’d find a lead!” Liam said, pulling Sara into a hug. She snuggled against Liam’s chest.

“Well, we couldn’t have done it without SAM,” Sara said. They walked over to the table, Liam still with an arm around her shoulder and Scott on Sara’s other side. Sara pulled up Morrison’s profile on her omni-tool.

“Our thief appears to be a 32-year-old male named Richard Morrison,” Sara announced. “Nexus records show that although he didn’t participate in the uprising, he did leave with the exiles. There’s a note here saying that someone heard Morrison talking about how Nexus leadership had failed everyone.”

“Boom, motive,” Liam said, looking delighted. “Simple.”

“Does he have any family?” Drack croaked. “Siblings? Kids? Maybe he’s still in contact with ‘em.”

Sara scanned his profile. “According to his records, he has a sister who works in water filtration on Eos.”

“Then we find her. See if she knows anything,” Vetra said, cracking her knuckles. “If this bastard had gotten his wish, we’d all be dead. If he’s loose, everyone is at risk.” Sara didn’t need to be able to read minds to know that Vetra was upset that Morrison had almost indirectly hurt Sid. Another reason to end this. Her friends and co-workers’ families had been put at risk.

“Alright everyone, let’s go.”

#

Sara had never, until they arrived at Jenna Morrison’s house, met someone who appeared to be as extensive of a neat freak as her. All of the books on Jenna’s shelves were labeled, as were the drawers and the cabinets. Her bed in the corner of her house was made, and there was not a single spare dish lying around in the sink.

“I can’t believe the pathfinder wanted to see me,” Jenna said, knocking into a chair in her nervousness. Her face looked quite pale. “I’ve heard all you’ve done, Pathfinder Ryder! It’s truly an honor!”

“Would you and your friends like tea?” Jenna asked, hands shaking. She flipped open a cabinet labeled “cups” and pulled out four teacups.

“Do you need any help?” Sara asked with a raised eyebrow. She hoped Jenna wouldn’t drop the glass teacups on the floor. Sara started to get up, and Jenna shook her head.

“You’re too kind, Ryder,” she said, smiling, like the picture of the perfect hostess. “But there’s no need. You’re my guest, please sit down and tell me why you came.”

“It’s for an investigation regarding a security issue at my wedding. Have you heard about it?” Sara asked. She swallowed the knot in her throat so that she could keep talking.

Jenna gave a tiny nod. “That was on the news. We’ve heard there were security problems, but that’s all.”

Well, that was good. Less explaining for her.

“Well, we’re looking to catch the criminals. We’ve found video footage and--” She took a deep breath. She really didn’t want to give this kind of news. What if someone accused Scott? “--your brother is wanted for questioning. Nothing to worry about, we just think he might have information that could help us find a lead.”

The hands holding the teacups trembled, and Jenna hastily put them on the counter. She swallowed. “Maybe I watch too many crime vids, Pathfinder, but someone is only ‘wanted for questioning’ if they’re a suspect. Why send _you_ if he was just a witness? Are you accusing Rick of something? Because he wouldn’t do anything to the Nexus! He’s an exile, but not a criminal!”

This woman was a mess. Sara needed to calm her down a bit. Sara didn’t blame her for jumping to conclusions and assuming they had evidence against her brother. If Sara were in her shoes, having Nexus bigwigs on her door wanting to talk about Scott… Well, she would be worried, too.

“Hey, no one is accusing, um, _Rick_ ,” Sara said, trying to keep her voice nice and soothing like all the times she would babysit Meri for Gil and Jill and needed to put the baby down for a nap. “We just think he might have some information that could help us. All we want is for him to help us discover the truth.”

“Yes, but why send the _pathfinder_ to interview me?” Jenna said, her eyes not leaving Sara’s. “You’re a busy woman. If my brother was just a witness, you could send someone who works in Nexus security--” Her breathing came out in short bursts “--You’d only come if you had big fish to fry! I’m not stupid!”

_Calm. Deep breaths. Just keep treating it like Meri is having a tantrum._

“No one is questioning your intelligence,” Sara said. “You have a good job here at Prodromos, and they wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t qualified.”

“Then be honest with me so I can sleep at night,” Jenna insisted. “Is Ricky a witness or a suspect?”

Jenna was clearly a perceptive woman. Sara would have to be honest with her if they wanted to move forward.

“There could always be a mistake, but we think Rick, _um_ ,” so weird that this guy had a sister who called him _Ricky_ , “we have reason to believe he could be a suspect. That’s where the evidence is pointing.” Sara wished she knew she Jenna well enough to squeeze her shoulder or take her hand. “I’m really sorry.”

Jenna nodded, sniffing, and looked like she was having a hard time figuring out what to say. “H-he wouldn’t d-do something like this. There has to b-be a mistake.”

“We’ll be back later,” Sara said, continuing with her calming voice that she saved for babies. “And nothing’s going to happen to Rick until we have concrete proof either way. In the meantime, maybe get the pot of tea going and try and take a nap, huh?”

Jenna turned away. “I-I’ll try. T-Thank you for your honesty.”

As they left the building. Cora raised her eyebrows at Sara.

“That was our only lead and you’re just walking away?”

Sara spun around to face to Cora, glaring at her. “Did you see her in there? She was about to have a breakdown! I’m not going to prod some poor woman for answers when her whole world is falling apart.”

Cora sighed, clearly seeing that she wasn’t going to win this one. “I guess I see where you're coming from Sara. Still, you should have Scott ask one of his buddies with Prodromos’ security team to keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn’t try and skip out on us. I’m going to get started on the mission report.” Cora turned toward the _Tempest_ and made her way to the ship.

Sara sighed, and buried her head in her hands. Liam walked over and wrapped his arms around her.

“Hey, you need a talk?” Liam asked her, holding her tight in his arms. The warmth of his embrace made Sara feel safe and secure.

“I do,” she said, dropping her hands and leaning back against Liam’s chest. “I just … What if I did the wrong thing? Richard Morrison almost killed us both, my family, our friends. What if this is my only chance to get a lead on him, and I lose it because I’m too sentimental? What if she’s in there, contacting him right now?”

“Well, I think you did the right thing,” Liam said, consolingly. “She was inconsolable. It’s an investigation, you can come back. Anyway, what if we talk to her coworkers in water filtration? Maybe someone has a grudge against her and would be willing to tell us if she’s up to anything strange--like talking to Richard.”

“It’s worth a try,” Sara sighed. With that, they headed to the sleek steel building labeled ‘water filtration.’ Sara saw no sign of Jenna. Must have the day off. Probably a good thing given how distraught she was.

A man dressed in a pristine suit strode over to greet them. “Ah, Pathfinder! How nice of you to visit. We don’t normally get visitors of such high caliber. I’m Matthew Wright, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Sara went with her gut and decided to go along with the hospitality. She could use it to her advantage in getting some answers.

“Well, water really _is_ an important thing here,” Sara said, hoping to boost Wright’s ego. Plus, it _was_ true. “Without water, we’d all be dead. Besides, this planet is barely tamed. You work hard.”

He looked just as flattered as Sara hoped. “T-thank you, Pathfinder! Perhaps you would like to see some of our larger structures outside?”

 _Yes, a moment alone with him._ Sara glanced at Liam.

“My fiancé and I would love a tour,” Sara agreed.

Sara continued to heap on the flattery. “Thanks so much again for agreeing to show us around. My mom is a scientist. Totally gave me a bird-eye view of all the hard work scientists do to give everyone easier lives. You and your crew get much time off? Do you go out for beers every now and then?”

Wright stopped them in front of a large water filtration pump with a sigh. He looked as wilted as some of Cora’s plants on the _Tempest_ . “Not as much lately. You seem trustworthy, Pathfinder, so there can’t be any harm in confiding in you.” Yes, _please_ confide in her! Perhaps her hunch about Jenna was about to be confirmed? “I haven’t gotten to take much time out with my crew lately. I suspect one of them is filtering a small amount water to an outside source not on the approved list of outbound shipments to our colonists surrounding Prodromos, but I can’t tell where it’s going or who is doing it. I don’t know who I can trust.”

Well, that was interesting. She exchanged a glance with Liam that told her her fiancé was on the same wavelength as her.

“Oh, man, that’s got to be a bummer,” Sara agreed, giving him a sympathetic gaze. Morrison _could_ be sending water to her brother, but they didn’t have any proof or away to track where the water was going. _Ugh_ , it would be a lot easier if she would just talk to them about what was going on. Maybe later when she was feeling up to it.

After a forty-five-minute long lecture on water filtration and how the pumps worked, which ordinarily Sara would have found interesting, she finally insisted to Wright that she and Liam should leave. The couple headed toward one of the shuttles.

“So,” Liam said, “is it just me jumping to conclusions due to an unhealthy love of vids, or do you think Morrison could be sending water to her sticky-fingered brother?”

“I agree, but we don’t have any proof,” Sara said, shoulders slumping. “Maybe it’s sisterly intuition, but I _know_ she’s helping Richard. If he’s an exile, he’ll need safe drinking water, right?” Sara began to pace. “I just need proof.”

Ellen’s voice came up over the comms. “Honey, you’ve done a great job today, but maybe you need a break. Come back to the _Tempest_ , get a snack, and come back down in a few hours and try again.”

Thank God for her mother.

“Good idea. Thanks Mom,” Sara said, herding Liam back towards the ship.

#

Once back on the ship, Sara couldn’t get the look of Jenna’s face out of her mind--sheer devastation. Why did she have to be the barer of bad news? Sometimes her job _sucked_. It was days like this she missed the simplicity of studying Prothean ruins, and defending the excavation team from pirates who would try and make off with their findings and protecting locals who lived nearby. It had been simpler than being Pathfinder, no doubts there.

 _Why_ had Dad had to die? He’d been an N7, he probably could have written a book on giving people bad news. Did Jenna even have anyone to comfort her? Family or someone she was seeing? For a while, Scott was all Sara had left of her family, until they’d woken Mom up.

Maybe Sara should do something nice for her. To show her that there were still plenty of people in Heleus who looked out for each other, even if Jenna’s brother had failed her.

Sara went down to the kitchen, where she found Gil, Drack, and Scott playing poker.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I kind of need the kitchen,” Sara said. _Kind of_ need the kitchen? She needed to show some backbone. “The _pathfinder_ needs this kitchen. Take your poker game elsewhere boys.”

“Ouch,” Gil said, beginning to clean up his cards. Sara giggled at them. This was a special deck of cards Gil had commissioned from someone on the Nexus a few weeks back, each card had a cute photo of two-and-a-half-year-old Meri on the back.

“I still can’t get over how cute those photos are,” Sara said.

“Might as well do something with all those photos Jill has lying around her house,” Gil said. He shrugged, but there was a note of pride in his voice. “You coming, boys? You two seriously need to win back your dignity.”

“I am,” Drack said. “And next time I’m gonna kick your ass!”

“I’m going to stay here so Sara doesn’t burn down the kitchen,” Scott said with a smirk. “I had to taste some of her attempts at cooking after we lost Mom, and trust me, you don’t want to try her unsupervised cooking.”

Gil and Drack both laughed as they left the room.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Sara chided. Though her pride would never let her admit it, she was glad that Scott stayed. He could actually cook and if Sara wanted Jenna to enjoy the cake she was planning on baking for her, some extra help would be needed.

“Hey, what’s a sibling for if not to keep each other from lighting shit on fire?” He smiled, but there was something tense in Scott’s voice. Almost like he had a grudge against her.

If she had upset him somehow, she should really try and cheer him up. Scott deserved that. He was her anchor, after all. He always had been.

“I appreciate you visiting me earlier. I was pretty down,” she sighed. She didn’t want to admit it. She hoped he knew she was only admitting it to cheer him up. After SAM had been discovered and Mom had gotten sick, she had tried so hard to be the strong one. She had never wanted Dad and Scott to see her struggling, fearing it would bring them down, too. And yet, Scott always seemed to know when she was upset. “--having you tell me it was okay not to be okay… It helped, Scotty.”

He let out a fake gasp. “Did our Sara just admit she needs help from mere mortals?”

“Asshole,” she replied, sticking her tongue out at him. “I try to be nice, and this is what you do?”

Scott’s expression twitched, the playful brother disappearing for several seconds. “You’re not nice when you don’t take me with you anywhere.”

And there it was.

Sara raised her eyebrows. From the way it was grumbled under Scott’s breath, and the sharp intake of breath that came afterward, she could only assume that Scott hadn’t meant for her to hear that.

“Okay,” Sara said, pulling a pan out of one of the cabinets and placing it on the table. “You’ve clearly got a beef with me Scotty, and you know I can’t stand it when we fight. So, what’s up, bro?”

“What’s up,” Scott said, sitting down in one of the kitchen chairs and giving her a steely look. “Is that you’ve treated me like I’m about four ever since I joined the team. I know you don’t think so, but I can do this. I _can_ help you, Sara. Or, I could if you’d _let_ me.”

Sara turned away from his sulking, glad to have the excuse of gathering ingredients from around the kitchen. Flower, milk, eggs.

She tried to ignore the image in her head of Dad giving her his helmet. The mission report from Scott about how it was him and SAM resetting her implant that had alerted the Archon to their location.

“You’re a great soldier, Scott.” _Shit, shit, think of something else to say so there’s not a glaring but there._ “I’m not snubbing you, promise.” She just had to think of an answer that would make Scott happy. “But Liam, Cora, the rest of the crew, we’ve been fighting together for more than three years now. We know each other’s styles. Taking them with me, it’s just habit, I guess.”

Scott’s eyes flashed. “That’s an even worse excuse than that time that Dad told us our goldfish was sick and needed to go to a ‘fish vet’ far away to feel better.” _Ah, yes._ The fish they had never seen again presumably because Mom and Dad had had to flush it. Scott stood up. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter why. Mom can help keep you from burning the kitchen down.” Scott headed for the door.

“Scott!” Sara said as the kitchen doors opened. “If there’s a fire in here, you do realize we’re in space, right? SCOTTY!”

The doors closed behind him, and with a heavy sigh, Sara messaged Ellen on her omni-tool to help her figure out how to bake Jenna a cake.


	3. Chapter 3

When Sara, Liam, and Cora disembarked the  _ Tempest _ again next day, the cake Ellen helped Sara bake cradled in her Sara’s arms, it was ironically Jenna, who came to greet them. Sara handed Morrison the cake, who seemed pleased, if surprised, to get such a gift from her.

“Pathfinder, thank God!” Morrison said, clearly out of breath in a hurry to reach Sara. It was then that Sara wondered if there was some kind of emergency going on: A large group of people was gathered around Prodromos’ brand new city building, notably at the front was a group of reporters.

“Has, um, something happened?” Sara said, squinting at the city building.

Jenna’s eyes swarmed with tears. “It’s Mayor Bradley. He was attacked in the middle of the night.”

Sara’s eyes widened. “Oh my God. Is he okay?

“Y-Yes,” Jenna nodded. “He has a few small injuries, but he’ll be back on his feet soon enough.”

First her wedding, and now someone was going after the mayor of Prodromos. Sara hoped they weren’t connected.

“Do we know who attacked him?” Sara said, once again trying to use that soothing-a-child voice again.

The tears that had gathered in her eyes poured forth. “W-we do. Ryder, it was my brother!” She let out a small sob. “I’ve been sneaking him food and water for months. At about 1 am in the morning, I got a call from the Prodromos security team, telling me about the attack. I knew he harbored bad towards the Nexus, but I never thought he w-would do something like this!” She let out a small hiccup. “When you showed up I tried to ignore my feelings--I couldn’t have put my trust in s-someone who would use me. I trusted him, and it turns out you were right, he l-lied to me! Oh, you must think I’m the biggest fool in the world. You should just g-go ahead and exile me now, I’ll accept whatever punishment you give me!”

Somehow, watching this woman breakdown, it was hard for Sara to get too angry with her. Wanting to help her sibling and believing the best in him was  _ hardly _ the worst crime a person could commit.

“Is your brother in custody?” Sara asked, still trying to make sure her voice was quiet and compassionate.

“Y-yes, b-but he won’t talk,” Jenna said. “H-he w-w-w-won’t see me and he says he’ll never say w-who he’s working with. Do I need to go and talk with security? A-About how I was helping him?”

“We’ll figure that out later,” Sara said, unsure of the best course of action to take. “I know it’s hard, Jenna, but you sound like you really want to help. You can help us find your brother. Do you know his hideout, where he keeps his weapons and armor, sleeps, eats, all that stuff?”

Jenna sniffed a little and started punching buttons on her omni-tool. “I--I’ve sent a navpoint to your omni-tool. Good luck.” She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. Jenna scurried off, head low.

“Well, that was depressing,” Liam said, shaking his head. “Imagine getting in that much hot water just for wanting to believe the best in someone.”

“I can’t say I blame her,” Sara said, sadness still in her voice as they walked towards the Nomad. “I mean, if Scott was an exile, I know I could never just cut my brother out of my life.”

“ _ Aw _ , how sweet! My sister  _ does _ love me. You know what a sister who loved me more would do?  _ Take me with her _ ,” Scott said over comms. Sara bit back a sigh. They had not made up after their fight yesterday and Scott had not said a word to him over breakfast. It was breaking Sara’s heart, but she just had to keep reminding herself: Better off fighting than losing Scott like she’d lost Dad.

“We’re not discussing this further,” Sara told him, her face set in determination.

“Fine.” Scott cleared his throat. “Anyway,  _ how  _ many innocent lives did this asshole threaten? What else has he been up to? Has anyone actually paid with their lives for this guy’s grudge?”

“I don’t know, but those are all good questions,” Cora said as the three of them all climbed into the Nomad. “With luck, Sara can bring him in alive and we can get some answers.”

She hoped so. Sara had to admit that this stung. Richard Morrison was one of their own, he should have never felt like the Initiative had failed him enough to drive him to this extreme.

"So, where is this navpoint?" Liam asked as they began to cruise away from Prodromos. Sara doubled checked her omni-tool.

"It looks like it's somewhere in a cave on Eos, past the lake, near some of the high plateaus beyond," Sara said, a slight grimace on her face. Liam seemed to get what she was thinking from the negative expression on her face.

"Ah, I know Sara, of  _ course _ it’s in a cave," Liam said. "In vids, you always see the baddies in those creepy out of the way places up to no good."

"Yeah, and on Kadara," Sara said. "Remember how we found the Collective base hidden in a cave on Kadara?" She could never forget. That had been a weird experience, entering the cave, following the strange lights, only to get interrogated by a wary-looking gang member until they had realized her identity.

"No doubt there is always something illicit going on in a cave in Kadara," Cora added with a shrug. "I guess if you're dealing in something illegal, you want someplace where you don't have to worry about being interrupted."

Sara and Liam both laughed.

" _ We’ll _ be worrying about being caught, though,” Cora said. “I know I’m not in charge—“ She glanced at Sara “—but all of you need to be careful, all right? We know don’t what might be hidden in those dark corners.”

"What _ should _ we do if caught?" Liam asked curiously. "Morrison might be in jail, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he has pals laying in wait to get us.” He shuddered.

“We miam, and not kill,” Sara said. “Maybe we can get some information out of anyone we catch.”

They all nodded in agreement, and the trip eased into silence. But it wasn't an awkward kind of silence, more a comfortable silence between friends. Sara would take that any day over a nervous silence about what they might face. She would rather lead her friends into a potentially dangerous situation, confident in their team and their abilities, rather that focusing on the worst possible scenario.

"Pathfinder," SAM said via Sara's omni-tool as the cave came into sight. "There is an anti-vehicular minefield at the entrance of the cave. I would recommend going in on foot."

"Someone was expecting visitors," Liam said as they got out of the vehicle and began to walk towards the damp-looking cave, sand crunching under their boots.

"Do you think maybe Jenna changed her mind?" Cora asked. "Maybe she regretted talking to Sara and decided to warn his friends to get on his good side?"

"Nah," Liam said, taking out his gun as they reached the cave. "I've seen traps like this in crisis response before. Minefields like this can take weeks to set up. No, it's likely that once the bomb was ready, Morrison ditched this camp and set up traps for when Nexus personnel came looking."

"Well, that makes sense, but it doesn't make me feel any better," Sara said, pulling out her pistol, a Jardaan particle blaster. "Let's go in, but take it slow, okay?"

"I know. You're the pathfinder and all, but I'll take point," Liam said, positioning himself in front of Sara and Cora. "Crisis response, remember? I know how to check for any traps this guy might have set up."

She wasn’t thrilled about  the idea of her fiancé leading the way into this den of danger, but he was the expert here. And she believed with her whole heart that Liam was good at his job.

"All right," Sara said, raising her weapon a bit higher. "Lead the way, then.”

One they were feet away from the cave, Liam eyed everything with a crease in his forehead.

"All right ladies, turn on the lights on your armor, I want you two watching where you're going once we’re inside," Liam said. He picked up a particularly large rock and flung it into the entrance of the cave. It landed with a  _ thud _ . At first, nothing happened, but then Sara stared in horror as a square hole appeared in the floor. Her mouth hung open a bit.

Liam bent down, squatting to better examine what they were dealing with.

"Ahhh, I've seen those before. The whole 'let's trap someone in a hole until either we come find them and kill them or until they starve to death.’" Liam made a disgusted face. "Not a pretty sight. But the good news is that as far as a trap goes, it is a pretty easy fix. You guys can just lift a big rock outside with your biotics, plop it in the hole and we can use our jump jets to get across the hole."

Sara shook her head. "I can't believe they thought ahead enough to think of the possibility that we might survive the mind field."

"Well, you have survived plenty of death-defying stuff in the past. If you ask me, it’s smart of them not to underestimate you. Or whoever the Nexus would have sent in the even that we’d all died at the wedding. We’ve all seen those films where the baddie underestimates the good guys. They’re covering their bases—not good for us, but still smart," Liam said. He gazed outside the cave, his eyes scanning rocks and seeming to dismiss them wordlessly. Finally, he pointed. "That one looks like it should be big enough to cover the hole."

In no time, Sara and Cora covered the hole, thanks to their biotics. By the time they finished, both women panted deeply. Lifting a boulder with just telekinetic powers was not as easy as it might seem. Sara felt as though she’d been asked to lift the Nomad.

Liam lept across the boulder, and over to the other side. Sara went next, and then Cora.

“Do you think we’re out of it?” Sara asked Liam, nervously biting her lip. On the bright side, she could feel a surge of energy going through her body. That had to be SAM trying to help her out with her tiredness problem from lifting the boulder. “I’m going to perform a scan, see if SAM can pick anything up.”

Sara flipped on her scanner and walked around the room, until SAM spoke.

“There is a narrow tunnel, that appears to lead out to an open space underground,” SAM said. “Perhaps that is where Mr. Morrison is hiding.”

Cora looked wary. She held up her hands. “Whoa! Are we sure we want to do this? This place is riddled with traps. We don’t know if we’ll find any more if we venture further down.” Cora cast an anxious look at Sara. “We’ve already lost one pathfinder, and somehow, with you, we’ve been been spared losing you three times now. If something were to happen down in a remote cave where an extraction team couldn’t get to you...” Cora sighed. “All I’m saying, Ryder, don’t let your father’s death be in vain.”

Sara hugged herself a little bit. Cora might have a point. Coming this far was risky. But what was the option? Go deeper, or let a bunch of terrorists roam free where they might hurt someone again? Sara frowned as she raised her gun a bit, heading towards the tunnel SAM had mentioned.

“I won’t,” Sara said, leading her friends down the dark and rocky pathway. She had to crouch to enter the narrow limestone pathway. “But if my dad were still alive, he’d want to know who almost murdered his family, who almost killed the pathfinder team. I  _ know _ that. I don’t honor his memory by running away. I honor his memory by seeing things through to the end.”

“Here, here,” Liam said, following her down the dark and narrow space, snuffling around at a slow pace behind her like a child crawling into a dark space for a game of hide and seek. Cora sighed, but followed them. Sara risked a glance behind her and while she could see that Liam was in full agreement with her-- she was starting to wonder if he’d specifically picked this spot in the line up so he could check her out.  _ The sneak. _

Cora, meanwhile, still looked frustrated;  Sara didn’t blame her, but she stood by her word. Alec might have been Cora’s mentor, but he’d been Sara’s father. Surely, she was the best judge of what to do with his legacy. He died for  _ her _ after all.

But still, those thoughts haunted her as they traveled downward. Was she truly the best one to decide how best to honor Alec? Truth be told, the way Cora talked about Alec sometimes, Sara felt like Cora had known her father better than his own family, in some ways.

It saddened her.

The light at the end of the tunnel drew Sara out of her self-pitying jealous thoughts.

“There!” Sara said, pointing ahead of her. She wasn’t able to move any faster in the cramped space.  _ Someone really didn’t want to be found! _ but knowing they were almost out added a bit of a spring to Sara’s step. With relief, she  stepped out of the cave, breathing heavily.

The room they entered was lit up with several lamps. After stumbling in from the dark cave, it took Sara’s eyes a few moments to adjust.

There was some kind of a lab in the corner. A sleeping bag. A terminal. All thoughts of being tired forgotten, Sara sprinted over to the terminal, so happy to see it that she could almost kiss the thing. She awoke the computer, her friends following her, only for her shoulders to slump at her discovery.

It was password protected. Sara groaned.

“SAM, can you hack this?”

“Of course, Sara,” SAM asked. “Have I ever not be able to hack something?”

“‘Have I ever not been able to hack something’ was that a joke, SAM?” Sara asked with a giggle.

“Mark this one down for the history books, SAM cracked a joke!” Scott said over comms.

“I knew you would figure it out one day,” Ellen said, a hint of pride in her voice as she joined Scott on comms.

“Actually, I meant it literally,” SAM replied. “I have a 95% success record in this type of situation.”

All three Ryders groaned in unison.

“We’ll  keeping working on it, SAM” Ellen said. “Sara, let me know if you find anything, sweetie!”

“Well, that sucked,” Scott said. “I’m sure we’ll be laughing about it later, though. Have fun with your hack.”

Moments later SAM announced that he had hacked the terminal.

“That was a particularly difficult hack, Sara,” SAM said. “Whatever information is in this database, they did not want anyone to access it. I disabled several system attempts to wipe all the information on its drives. Fortunately, none of the data was corrupted in the attempt.”

“Without you, we’d have came all this way for nothing,” Sara said.

“Indeed, without me, if you had tried to hack into the terminal yourself, all data files would have been destroyed,” SAM agreed. Urgh,  _ that _ wasn’t a happy thought.

Sara rubbed her hands together, then set her hands down on the keyboard. Her first stop: Morrison’s email account. Oddly, a lot of the emails were about farming or water distillation.

“Huh?” Sara said, starting to lose hope as she scrolled through the emails. Why were over half those emails about  _ farming _ ? Finally, she saw one near the bottom labeled ‘Future plans for Advent.’

“Advent.” Cora sounded thoughtful, like she was trying to recall a half-remembered dream. “Weren’t they that ‘sovereign’ state who wanted you to mine natural gas that they could trade with Prodromos for water?”

“Yeah, and I chose to stick with the original plan of drilling for water,” Sara said, with a sigh. “Let’s see what they were planning.”

Sara clicked on the email, a pit of dread in her stomach. She feared this wasn’t going to be good.

_ Richard, _

_ I am glad you seem to be like-minded about the Nexus failing us. We left with the outcasts, but chose better than joining them, because we wanted to be self-sufficient. We want to lead. We want to live the dream we were promised that the Nexus couldn’t provide. _

_ And then we got the ultimate failure. _

_ We all know the story. Pathfinder Sara Ryder showed up, and when we wanted to trade with her, she acted like she was so high and mighty and went on about how drilling for natural gas would hurt the environment, like we didn’t have people who were depending on the water we could have used from that underground river  _ _ immediately _ _! We were very lucky that a contact among the ice runners on Voeld agreed to trade with us under the table. Advent would have perished without that connection. _

_ When we first established Advent, we agreed that we weren’t bandits, and we won’t be! We’ll be freedom fighters! We heard stories about the pathfinder and the hope she inspired, but she didn’t give us the time of day. The whole Nexus needs to go, but it will take time and followers. I will leave you further details at our usual drop point so that if this is found, our plans do not perish. _

_ Linnea T’Vosi _

Sara closed her mouth to prevent herself from vomiting all over the console. All this time, she had been sick about the idea that her family and friends had almost died,

and it was her fault. She knew that the others would say otherwise, but it was the truth. These people blamed her.

She had refused to work with those people, and everyone she loved almost paid the price.

Liam’s hand squeezed her shoulder, even as she took shallow breaths.

“Sara,” Liam said, squeezing her hand. “This wasn’t your fault. They chose to become murderers when they didn’t get what they wanted. That’s on them.”

“He’s right, honey,” Ellen said over comms. “You made the best choice you could have at the time. Your father always used to say that people revealed their true nature when they were desperate.” Ellen’s voice had taken on a sad tone, and Sara knew without having to ask that she was thinking of how Alec had saved both of them. “... And they’ve revealed theirs. Liam’s right. They made a choice to become murderers. You did the best you could with a hard choice. It’s not your fault.”

Tears made the cave glow blurry around Sara. “But you could have died! You all could have died! If I had known they would have turned out like this--”

“And what kind of choice is that?” Scott asked. “‘Trade with us for natural gas, or everyone you love dies!’ That’s not a real choice, sis. That’s blackmail. Unless you mean you wish you could see the future. That  _ would _ be cool. And useful.”

Her knees buckled, but Liam caught her. “Then why do I feel like it’s my fault?” she whispered.

“Because you’re human,” Cora said, shutting down the console. She shook her head in Sara’s direction. “Look at you. You need rest. You’re taking the day off, got it?”

Sara lacked the strength to argue. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to be out in the field right now. Her choice almost  _ killed _ her team. She felt exhausted by sorrow and just wanted to go to bed and sleep.

Her teammates steered her back to the ship, where Sara found her way back to her room on autopilot. She changed out of her armor and into sweats, and then buried herself under the warm, safe covers of her bed. A part of her never wanted to get up.

After a few minutes, soothing music filled the room via her stereo. That had to be SAM. The light and lifting melody did a good job of helping her lose some of the tension in her muscles, but she didn’t feel better. Eventually, the music drifted her off to sleep.

Eventually, a knock echoed off Sara’s door. A glance at the time from her omni-tool told her that it was about ten in the morning the next day. She tried her best to ignore the person knocking at the door in the hopes that they would go away.

They didn’t.

_ Great _ , it was probably whatever person the team decided should deal with her.  _ Who did they choose? Maybe they drew straws for it? _ Even she didn’t want to deal with herself right now.

“Go away,” Sara said, half into her pillow, which muffled her voice. She didn’t care as long as they got the message. “SAM, could you lock my doors?”

Instead, the opposite happened. They slid open, to reveal Liam, who strangely grinned down at her.

“Hey, you! Get up! The annual fair to celebrate Prodromos’ fourth anniversary is today. We’ve got you to thank for that, so you’ve got to go!”

“And have people staring at me?” She buried her head further into her pillow. “I don’t want to go to an event where I’ll just be the center of attention, Liam.” The last thing she wanted to do was have crowds of people gaping at the Pathfinder.

Her fiancé, being typically himself, was not moved by her stubbornness. It made her wonder how he’d have dealt with her father as pathfinder. “So, then we wear some sunglasses and you were a big hat. Everyone knows how bright the sun is on Prodromos, no one will question it.” He pulled the pillow out from under Sara’s head and tugged at her hand. It was hard not to smile, he was like a kid at Christmas. “Come on, we had fun last year even with all the fuss. If we’re clever, no one will know we’re there.” He tugged at her hand a bit harder. “Come  _ on _ , Sara. They’ve even got a Ferris wheel. We can have a kiss at the top like in vids. And I’ll win you a giant stuffed animal you can barely carry, and we can share ice cream. It’ll be aces!”

It seemed Liam was not going to be content letting her lay in bed for the rest of the weekend. And the image he painted was hard not to smile at, let alone say no to.

“Okay,” Sara said, sitting up. “Just give me a few minutes to get dressed into something other than sweats.”

“Roger,” Liam said, exiting her room. A few minutes later, she came out dressed in a tank top and capris, her hair slightly curled, with the widest brimmed hat she could find. She slid a pair of sunglasses onto her face as she checked out Liam’s casual shorts and t-shirt, of course, paired with a set of shades. Between the carefree grin, his muscles, and the dark lenses, he looked  _ really _ hot.

“Appreciating the view, Sara?” He asked her with a grin as she came over and took his hand. The pair strolled hand in hand towards the exit. Once they got to the bottom of the  _ Tempest _ ’s landing ramp, he took both her hands.

“Look, I know you well enough to know that me telling you it isn’t your fault won’t be good enough,” Liam said, rubbing her knuckles. “And I love your sense of responsibility and your work ethic. So, for now, I’m not going to tell you it’s not your fault. You’re not going to argue. We’re just going to have fun, got it?”

Sara appreciated his attempt to cheer her up and get her out of her room. A smile spread across her face and she kissed him on the cheek. “Got it. Now come on, I want to try some of those rides!”

“One of the first things I learned going to festivals like this with Mom and Scott as a kid, was to always do rides first. If you eat and then do rides, well, next time you see Scott, ask him about the time he vomited all over my favorite dress when we were five.” She scowled at the memory. She had liked that dress. If memory served, she had cried for about twenty minutes afterward. Or perhaps Mom just teased them both about it so much that it felt like a memory when she was only remembering Mom tell it.

Liam smirked. “That sounds like prime teasing material. I  _ will _ do that.”

Giggling at that promise, she swung Liam’s hand as she led him to a ride that looked promising. First, they did bumper cars and they walked away giggling as they made their way towards the Ferris wheel. The line moved fast. Soon they climbed into the seat and wrapped their arms around each other, snuggling close.

“I’m still mad we’re not doing this as a married couple,” Sara said with a huff. She removed her hat so she could have a better view from the air. “We’re supposed to be celebrating our wedding right now, not hunting terrorists.” Sara tried, and failed, to swallow the lump in her throat.

“Hey, I meant what I said right after all this went down,” Liam said, kissing her hair. “Nowhere I’d rather be than by your side, Sara. It doesn’t matter if we’ve had a ceremony or not. I don’t need witnesses or an officiator for us to be married. As far as I’m concerned, we’re married, even if it’s not official.”

Still smiling, Sara reached up and pressed her lips to Liam’s. Liam’s hand drifted to her lower back, edging her even closer to him. Sara let one hand rest on Liam’s chest and the other rest on his muscled shoulder. Once they broke the kiss, Liam’s lips drifted to her neck and she gasped slightly as one of his hands rested on her thigh.

“O-Okay!” She moaned, trying to steel herself. “We’re in public! We should tone it down a little.” She was breathing a bit hard as she said it, face flushed. She didn’t want to hold back, even if she knew it was the right choice. Suspended in the air, snuggled close to Liam and feeling his body heat, this was perfect. But she also didn’t want anyone on the ground gagging at them being  _ that _ couple.

Plus there was also the fear of falling out of their seats. It was a long fall to the ground.

“Shame,” Liam said with a bit of a smirk.

Wanting at least a compromise, she wrapped both of her hands around one of his and cuddled against his shoulder as the wheel started its second loop. When she looked out at that view they had, she was kind of glad she and Liam stopped sucking face. The plateaus of Eos were gorgeous, especially from this high up. You could see Eos’ biggest lake and the homes that now dotted it from up here. She was pretty sure she could see her and Liam’s house from that vantage point, and Mom and Scott’s house.

“Remember when we first landed on Eos and everything was covered in radiation?” Sara asked. “The planet was a wasteland.”

“Makes you proud of everything we did,” Liam said. “Those were the days when I wondered if maybe I’d made the wrong choice to leave my family and a job I liked behind. But then we started to clean things up and we found each other.  But look at this, people stuffing their faces with candy floss and a two-mile line for the carousel. If we’d given up, there wouldn’t be anything like this.”

Their carriage screeched to a halt at the bottom of the ride and they climbed out holding hands.

“What gets me emotional are the little angaran children here,” Sara said. “They’ve had so much of their culture stolen between finding out they were made by the Jardaan and then everything with exaltation. I can’t imagine losing so much of my culture that young. They deserve a night to have fun like this.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Liam said. Suddenly, his eyes lit up. “Hey, it’s one of those booths where you can win prizes. Come on, I’ve got to win you a bear.”

He was so insistent, that Sara had zero desire to argue with him about it. If he wanted to win her a stuffed animal, she was happy to let him. It was totally sweet and romantic. “Are you wanting to show off for me, Kosta?” She leaned forward so they were just inches apart. She batted her lashes partly as a joke and partly as legit flirting.

“Ew,” said a kid behind them in line. Both Sara and Liam broke into giggles.

Liam lowered his voice a little. “Maybe I am, Sara. What then?”

It was their turn in line. “Then impress me, nerd.” She grinned at him.

The object of the booth was to use a ball that could fit in the palm of your hand to knock down a pyramid of plastic bottles.

“Ah, this will be easy,” Liam said, shooting Sara a confident grin. He aimed the ball at the bottom of the pyramid and it hit with a clash. All of the bottles fell down.

“Excellent!” said the salarian running the both. “Pick your prize.”

There were lots of stuffed animals to chose from, but in the end, Sara picked a brown bear with a pink ribbon about it’s neck.

The kid in line behind them, a dark-skinned human girl, clapped her hands in glee. “That was awesome! I can’t hit the side of a barn in our physical education classes. Could you throw it for me, so I could win a prize?” Her eyes were hopeful and lit up. Sara couldn’t help but immediately take a liking to the kid.

“Sure,” Liam said, accepting the ball from the booth manager and waiting for them to get the bottles setup again. Once they were ready, he knocked the pins down much like the first time.

The girl jumped up and down a little and picked out a stuffed hippo. Sara and Liam left the booth.

“How did you get that both times?” Sara asked. Liam’s boasting before they started hadn’t been arrogance; he was good at the game.

“Well, when you’re tossing around grenades in combat, you have to have good aim, or risk your teammates getting hit with friendly fire.”

Sara hugged her new bear tightly. All of a sudden she was very grateful for Liam’s throwing arm.

He started counting on his fingers. “Let’s see, I got you that good Ferris wheel kiss, I got to show off and win you a prize, all that’s left for the evening is dessert, right?”

“I think you did promise me ice cream or some other kind of fair food,” Sara said. She sniffed hopefully at the air. “Do you think they have funnel cakes? You know, the pastries with as much powdered sugar as they can carry sprinkled on top?” She wasn’t sure if they were called something else in England.

“That sounds amazing,” Liam said. “Did your mom let you get those? I thought Ellen was a health nut.”

Sara rolled her eyes. “She is. But sometimes she would let us get them at carnivals like this as a special treat.”

“Let’s go find them, then,” Sara said. She managed to find the funnel cake booth by smell rather that sight. Soon enough she and Liam were sitting on a bench near the carousel breaking off pieces of funnel cake and stuffing them into their mouths.

“When you lived on London with your parents,” Sara said conversationally, “did you ever do anything like this with your mom and dad?”

Liam brightened. “Yeah loads. It’s funny, even though we lived in London, there was still a lot of alien food. My mum loved this fudge the asari made whenever there was a big celebration going on. It was this sort of chocolate and strawberry flavor?”

“Mmm, that sounds good,” Sara said. As they finished their shared dessert, Sara looked up at the fading daylight, and the fairgoers mulling up contently and she felt completely content. Liam had been right to bring her out there, this was way better than moping in her room.

She threw away her plate and then came to sit by Liam. She wrapped an arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” She mumbled. “I needed it.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sara sat on her couch with a bowl of cereal the next morning only to be interrupted by SAM.

“Sara, you should know that several Initiative scouts report finding an abandoned Advent camp. Bradley emailed you the coordinates.”

Still holding her bowl, Sara moved as fast as she could while holding a bowl full of milk and Blasto’s. Mom might not be up right now--she liked to say that almost dying had taught her the important things, including sleeping in undisturbed--but Sara could almost hear her mother warning her not to spill Blasto’s and milk all over the pathfinder’s quarters.

Still with that mental picture in her brain, once at her terminal, Sara sat the bowl down without the spoon making so much as a clank against the bowl and opened her email. She made notes of the coordinates, took another bite out of her cereal and then sent Bradley a thank you message in reply, being sure to add a PS asking about his health. She notified everyone about the new lead via her omni-tool; then went back to her couch, cereal in hand. Before she left, she intended to finish her breakfast. She took her time, mainly because she didn’t want to go out in the field when she was still half asleep.

By the time she was suited up and ready to go, she headed to the weapons locker to find Liam and Cora already suited up.

Cora raised her eyebrows. “That was slow, Sara, for you. Normally when you’re excited for a mission, you’re here right away.”

“Wasn’t awake yet,” Sara said with a shrug. “I want to go at these guys with my all. Can’t be yawning if these guys try to kill us.”

Liam laughed. “Right?”

“Touching down on Eos.” Kallo said as the  _ Tempest _ swooped towards the planet and landed gracefully at a docking bay. Fully suited up and with favorite weapons in hand, Sara led her team down the ramp and towards the nearest forward station, where she deployed the Nomad. They all climbed in.

“Where  _ is _ this camp?” Liam said. The eagerness in his voice made Sara smile. He wanted payback just as much as she did.

“It’s not the small camp we found up in Sawtooth,” Sara said. “This one is tucked away, deep in a canyon. It’ll be a long drive.”

“Well, then, I’ll have to break out the playlist,” Liam said with a good natured grin.

“As long as it’s not that rock we listened to last time,” Cora said while Sara and Liam rolled their eyes at her.

“You act as old as Drack sometimes,” Liam argued. “It’s good stuff, right, Sara?”

She huffed, hands firmly on the wheel. “Don’t bring me into it, I’m trying to focus. You guys know how hard this thing is to drive!”

They ended up compromising and listened to music that was a bit more pop to satisfy Cora, who could surprisingly belt it out. Who knew Cora liked music other than asari ballads?

Finally, they got to the canyon. Located near some Jardaan ruins, there were several large boulders in the middle of the camp. A recently extinguished fire was located at the middle of the camp, and several tents were set up. This place had been lived in recently.

“Be prepared for an--” Sara was about to say “ambash” when Sara heard the sound of gunfire. They all ducked and pulled out their weapons. Enemies were pouring from the camp--mostly humans, but also a few salarians and asari. Sara and her friends aimed their weapons and began firing.

“I’ll take that guy!” Liam said, nodding at a rather burly man.

“Be careful,” Sara told Liam, giving him a supportive smile.

“I will be. Don’t worry,” Liam said, charging with a frag grenade at the biggest and brawniest man in the group, wearing the heaviest armor. Sara and Cora slowly approached the camp, occasionally darting behind any cover they could find.

Several of the Advent members wore light armor and were easily hoisted into the with their biotics. In the thick of the fight, Sara almost didn’t notice something whiz past her ear. She turned and saw one of the assassins, who seemed to have come out of nowhere and had her directly in his crosshairs.  _ Huh, must have been cloaked. _ She responded by throwing up a biotic barrier, and then waited until he had to reload his weapon. Then, she fired a single shot that bored through the center of his forehead.

Cora, meanwhile, charged a large muscular looking man, a haze of blue biotic charge crackling around her. When Cora hit him, Sara saw the man fly backward into a craggy boulder. She wondered how many bones might have been broken in the dual impacts. She had no doubt that the other guy had ended up worse, though. Cora did that sort of thing all the time.  

Another attacker leapt out from behind cover, spraying bullets at Sara; she dropped to the ground in order to get out of the line of fire. She leapt onto a remnant pillar to get to higher ground. From her vantage point, she used throw to take out more of them.

Liam’s attempt to take on a big and nasty one by himself didn’t look like it was going well. The big lug drove him back  towards the canyon wall. Liam’s opponent excelled at melee and  attacked so swiftly and with such power that he kept Liam on the defensive, who was dodging every attack by inches.

Sara leapt from the pillar with her jump-jet. She had to help Liam

Then the melee fighter grabbed Liam by the neck and slammed him into into the canyon wall.

“Liam!” Sara yelled. He did not answer her. He fell to the ground, unmoving. Sara responded by throwing herself at Liam’s attacker with a biotic charge.

Their assailants now down to two, Sara radioed the  _ Tempest _ .

“L--Liam’s hurt! We’re going to need an emergency extraction.”

The two remaining attackers were easily taken care of by combining a pull with a throw. Sara felt a sick satisfaction seeing them flying into the air.

“ETA, three minutes,” Kallo replied. Did they have that long? Sara found her mind flashing back to Habitat 7. Sara ran over to Liam, Cora right behind her. Sara felt for a pulse and was relieved to find one.

Seeing Liam on the ground, motionless, triggered emotions Sara hadn’t felt in years. For a split second, she was back in a hospital, holding her mother’s hand as she watched the weakened woman struggle for survival. She heard Dad struggling to breath. Watched as Scott’s cryo pod soared over her.

In her mind, she could see the delighted smile Liam gave her as she had walked towards him on their almost-wedding day. Feel that flutter in her gut when he said he considered them to be married even without a ceremony or a piece of paper. She remembered the big date where she had realized she loved Liam, had fully admitted it to herself; that afternoon when they used jumbo jump-jets to fall off a plateau. He talked about wanting her to have memories when they were old, memories that made her smile.

What if they didn’t get to grow old together?

She felt as though there was a weight on her chest. It was hard to breathe and tears leaked out of her eyes.

“Sara?” Cora was saying. “Sara!”

Tears leaked out of her eyes.

“You need to take deep breaths,” Cora said. “In for a four-count. Then out.”

“I … can’t!” Sara sniffed. She’d lost her dad, she’d lost her mom once. She couldn’t add Liam to a list of people she’d lost, not when their life together was barely beginning. She couldn’t. “I can’t relax Cora, I--”

Sara was interrupted by the  _ Tempest’ _ s arrival. Liam was carried into the ship on a stretcher, which broke Sara’s heart. She was pretty sure Drack hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried her to her room, depositing her on her bed like a disobedient child.

She wanted to go right to the medbay but she knew Mom and Lexi would just shoo her out while they examined Liam. She would be in the way. In the meantime, she went to the kitchen to make herself a pot of tea and then went back to her room, where she buried herself in a pile of blankets. She tried to read several books, but ended up throwing each aside. Waiting was always the hardest part of someone being in the hospital.

After about thirty minutes, Cora entered. She looked hesitant, maybe even nervous about talking to Sara.

“Hey, I know you’re probably not up to talk, but I want to let you know Peebee, Vetra, and I had a look around the camp, since we didn’t have time earlier because of the,” she swallowed, “ambush. It looks like they’d only been camping out there for a couple of days. They were likely just waiting for us to show up to investigate so they could attack us. I’m sorry, Sara. The trail is cold again. But we’ll keep working on it! You just focus on being there for Liam. Oh, that reminds me! Lexi said he’ll be fine, just a concussion. He’s unconscious and needs time to wake up on his own, but he should be fine.”

That was some of the best news she’d heard in a while. She was grateful for the news about the camp, even if it was bad news. She had almost forgot about the camp in her worry about Liam. “That’s great, Cora.” Sara said. “I think I’ll go sit with him for a bit, it will make me feel better.”

“Like I said, don’t worry about the investigation. Vetra, Drack, Jaal, Peebee, and I got it.”

Cora left the room so fast, Sara had no doubts that Cora was relieved to be done talking with her.

Lexi was making notes on a chart when Sara entered with two books to read throughout the night and her cup of tea. She had become an   expert at staying up with sick and unconscious people.

Lexi gave Sara a smile when she entered. Sara wasn’t sure if the doctor was trying to be reassuring or if she was truly in a good mood. She really didn’t care, either. Sara pulled up a stool and sat down next to Liam and pulled open one of the books she’d brought with her. This took her back to the days when Mom had been sick and maybe it was because of that that Sara couldn’t bring herself to head back to her room, even though she knew he’d be okay. How could she believe that, trust it with her own eyes? Her luck couldn’t last--Liam being okay, them growing old together.  Before Liam, she had feared ending up like her mom, married to a workaholic and ignored, but Liam changed her mind. Sure, he and her dad had a few similarities--their drive and work ethic, their determination to achieve a goal no matter what. But Liam wasn’t her dad. He was warm, and open. Those were things Alec, no matter how much of a heart of gold he’d been hiding beneath the surface, hadn’t been able to express even at his best.

_ What if she left him and something happened? _

By 1 am, she blinked to stay awake as her book threatened to put her to sleep. The hiss of the door startled her. Sara’s head snapped in that direction to see Mom enter, wearing a bathrobe over her pajamas and looking tired.

“You going to go to bed, sweetie?” Mom asked, walking over and gently taking the book out of Sara’s hands.

She shook her head. “Not until Liam wakes up and I see that he’s fine with my own eyes.”

“You sound like your Dad,” Ellen said, setting Sara’s book on Liam’s bedside. She sighed. “I can’t count how many nights he stayed up with me when I was too sick to get out of bed.”

“Aww,” Sara said, a smile curving her lips.

A sad look crossed over Ellen’s face. “I think he felt guilty. All those years he spent trying to advance his career, and then,” she sighed again. “I get you’re worried about Liam, honey, but I helped diagnose him. He’ll be all right. Get some sleep.”

Sara scooted a little closer to Liam’s bed. “I can’t, Mom. He needs me.”

A line appeared on Ellen’s forehead, she was clearly thinking. “Well, if you’re not going to go back to bed, maybe at least take a break with me? I want to show you something. It might make you feel better.”

Sara wasn’t sure what might manage that miracle. The same assholes who nearly killed everyone at her wedding  had struck again, and this time they hurt Liam. But it was Mom, who had nursed so many fevers, failed friendships, and other general heartaches over the years that it was easy to believe that Mom  _ did _ have a solution that would make Sara feel better.

“I guess I do need to refill my tea,” Sara said, shrugging. “A five-minute break can’t hurt.”

“That’s my girl,” Ellen agreed. “Go refill your cup and met me back in your room. I’ll go get my little project for you to see. I think you’ll like it.”

The mystery of it intrigued Sara. Guilt for leaving Liam overwhelmed her curiousity. She knew Mom was trying to distract her, and Sara had fell for it. Still, she grabbed her empty mug and headed for the kitchen. She really had no choice to go. Mom would keep pestering her about it until she agreed.

Once she poured more tea from the kettle, she went to her room and sat down on the couch, careful not to spill her tea. When Ellen entered a minute or so later, carrying a shoebox, Sara set her tea down on a coaster.

“Your project is a pair of shoes?” Sara asked, a bit confused. All of the sudden, this project looked like a simple ruse to get Sara away from the medbay for a bit.  _ And dammit, it worked. _

“Not shoes,” Ellen said. She swung open the lid and Sara found herself staring. It was filled with random odds and ends that looked like junk to Sara.

“I’m still confused?” Sara said, practically drowning in the disappointment. Mom probably stuffed all this junk in there while Sara refreshed her tea.  _ She had been conned! _

Ellen giggled. “No, not junk.” She gave Sara a good-natured smile. ”Your father left for deployment shortly after we got married. I would come home from work to an empty house, and too much time to sit and let anxiety bottle up. I would imagine all the horrendous ways your father could be killed in combat and … it ate away at me, Sara.”

She couldn’t see what this story was about but that didn’t mean she wasn’t willing to listen. But she did have a question. “Mom, does this have anything to do with Dad’s death?” Mom didn’t talk about Dad often, Sara knew because she didn’t want to worry her and Scott, but Sara knew it was still a fresh heartache for Mom.

“It’s to do with his death and it’s not, just listen,” Ellen said gently. “Nightmares kept me up at night. I picked at my food during the day. Finally, your grandmother gave me an idea.”

“What?”

“She suggested that I collect things that reminded me of your dad. Things for when I was scared or lonely. When I needed something to hold,” Ellen said. Instantly guilt overwhelmed Sara, tightening her chest and her smile. She dared devalue that collection of sentimental knick knacks!

“So that’s what’s in this box?” Sara asked. “Things that remind you of Dad?”

“Yes. Tragically all the boxes I collected over the years are lost now. I don’t know what your father did with them after he put me into stasis,” Ellen dug through the box, and then held up a ringbox before dropping it back into the box, “but I do have your dad’s wedding ring.” Sara wasn’t even sure she wanted to know how Mom had gotten a hold of that. “Here are a few handwritten notes on SAM I found in his quarters.” Ellen held up a few scraps of paper, and dropped those back in the box, too. Tears welled up in Sara’s eyes at the sight of Alec’s cramped handwriting. “A bit of  padding from the helmet your Dad  wore on Habitat 7.” Her fingers rubbed over the material a moment before holding it out toward Sara.

“I wondered why a chunk of the padding suddenly went missing. I thought I was just being careless in combat.”

“Not at all,” Ellen said, giggling. “I broke into your room after I was discharged from the medbay. You were away on Initiative business. You left it sitting on a table. It was easy, really.”

They both laughed.

“So, you look at all this stuff whenever you miss Dad?” Sara asked. As usual whenever Alec was brought up, Sara couldn’t help feeling guilty when talking to her Mom and Scott. They all missed him, and he had sacrificed himself for  _ Sara _ . It was her fault that they couldn’t speak to him or hug him or--

“Sara,” Ellen took Sara’s hand and squeezed it. “We’ve talked about this. Dad’s death wasn’t your fault. If I had to choose between my husband and my daughter, I’d pick you,  _ always _ . Scott and I don’t blame you, and you shouldn’t blame yourself.”

Sara blinked away the tears forming in her eyes. “Umm,” she said her throat tight, “what were you saying about this stuff?”

Ellen smiled a little at the topic change and rubbed Sara’s knuckles before releasing her hand. “Before your father died, I would look at some of the things I’d collected, or I would add something new to the box when I was worried about him, and now that he’s gone, I look at the things I’ve collected to remember.”

That was sweet. Sad, but sweet. Then what Mom suggested hit Sara.

“You think it’d be more productive for me to start a Liam box than to camp out by his bedside?”

“Hovering won’t change his condition,” Mom said in a firm voice. “Lexi and I are taking good care of him, and we’ll let you know if there’s a change. Besides, how will Liam feel if he wakes up and five minutes later, you fall asleep? You need some rest for his sake as well as yours.”

“Okay,” Sara walked over to her closet and pulled out a shoebox she had yet to throw away from a shopping trip with Mom on the Nexus a few weeks back. “Liam box. I got this.”

Sara wandered over to a recycling bin that she kept underneath her desk and took out an empty beer bottle.

“One of the first conversations Liam and I had was a discussion about our families and service history over beers,” she explained. “That will probably take up half the room in the box.”

“Then you can start a second box!” Ellen said with a smirk.

Sara grabbed a miniature model of Aya off one of her selves where other collectible models of towns and space ships sat. “One of our first dates was on Aya.”

“Nice one!”

“A-and,” Sara said with a yawn, “one of our favorite dates was when we jump-jetted off a cliff.” She broke off into another yawn.

Ellen laughed.  “Your dad was always an adrenaline junkie, too. We went exploring in a cave on our third date. I think he was trying to see if I scared easily.”

“Did you?”

Mom yawned. “N-not really. Now, I think it’s time for us to shut this conversation down and get to bed.”

“Okay,” Sara said without argument. Given that her Mom just shared something really personal with her, Sara couldn’t repay her by heading back to the medbay. She gave her mom a goodnight kiss on the cheek, and climbed into bed.


	5. Chapter 5

“Sara, wake up!” Peebee’s voice drifted above her “Liam is awake. Get up!” She tried to grab Sara’s arm and pry her out of bed.

Scott’s approach was more gentle. He swatted Peebee’s arm away and gently nudged Sara. “Sis, wake up. Liam wants to see you.”

That was enough to get Sara to push past feeling half-dead to get up and do a zombie-like shuffle toward the medbay. Fortunately, Mom had her covered and pressed a coffee into her hands the moment Sara walked into the room.

“Bless you,” Sara said and took a drink. Her eyes fell on Liam, who was awake and propped up on several pillows. His eyes were bright and he looked happy.

“Sara!” He said, beaming at her. “I’ve been waiting for you to get up, but your mum and Lexi wouldn’t even send someone to wake you up until they’d run a few tests on me.”

“And how are you doing?” Sara said as she slid into a chair beside his bed.

“I’ll be out of here in no time,” Liam said, giving her a confident wink.

“Oh, I know that giving a vague date to people bullshit,” Mom said. “I know you. You're just going to try and slip out of here the moment Lexi and I have our backs turned.”

Liam blushed, clearly caught. He cleared his throat. “Er, well, Ellen, thing is--”

“Hey, terminal illness survivor right here?” Mom said, as she picked up Liam’s chart and made several notes on it. “I know the crap people in hospitals try and say to get out early because I’ve tried it  _ myself _ . You can’t fool me into thinking you’re feeling better than you are.”

“Shit,” Liam said. “You’re good.” He huffed, crossed his arms, and spoke to Sara, “Since I can’t get away with giving vague dates to have you sneak me out of here early--” he winked at Sara --”they want me on bedrest for at least a week. They say I’ll be okay, but I hit my head pretty hard, and the docs don’t want me to do any more damage to the noggin. Apparently my head needs a rest.” Liam rolled his eyes.

“I should say,” Mom replied. “You were quite banged up. If you don’t rest, it’ll just take longer for your head to heal.” She put down Liam’s chart, and glanced at both of them, smiling. “Well, I might be old, but I’m not stupid. I’m going to give you two some space. But I’ll be across the hall, so Sara please don’t lose your head because Liam gave you puppy eyes and begged for a jailbreak.”

“I’ll try and be strong,” Sara said, flashing Mom a grin before her mom left the room, datapad in hand, doors closing behind her.

“So, now that she’s gone,” Liam said, beaming at her. “Would you consider breaking me out of here, Sara? The hospital has got to be the most boring place in Andromeda. What am I supposed to do in here, count sheep? There aren’t even any good vids I can watch, I already asked your mum.”

“Aww, poor baby,” Sara said with a smirk. “I’m sorry you have to stay here. You’re so restless. I can only imaging how much you’re going to want to be out with the team.”

“Tell me about it,” Liam said, shuddering. “But when I think back to the moment, when he grabbed me-.” Liam gestured with his hands, ”all I saw was your face, and all I could think was how I couldn’t go now, not if it was going to make you sad. Not when we were supposed to have a lifetime.” He took Sara’s hand.

“I’m sorry I worried you,” Sara said. She looked as glum as when Scott had been in the hospital. “But I’ve lost too many people. Dad. Mom, for a few years, nearly Scott, too.” It was hard to keep the tears out of her eyes.

Liam squeezed her hand. “Hey, it’s no problem. You’ve been through a lot, Sara. If anyone’s got the right to complain, it’s you. Go to Nexus security and tell them you need the universe arrested for undue trauma and tribulations.”

The laughter came easily; it always did with Liam. Sara tried to keep her voice reassuring. “I’ll have a talk with Mom and Lexi though. Maybe we can at least move you home? Mom could look after you, the  _ Tempest  _ got by just fine when Mom was in stasis and we had just one doctor, after all.”

“More time with my favorite Ryder women in the comfort of my own home and private vid collection? Sign me the fuck up,” he grinned at her. “Seriously, thanks for that. Even if you can’t wrangle it, the offer means a lot, Sara.”

She pecked him on the cheek. “What’s your future-wife for?”

“Hey,  _ wife _ , present tense. None of that future-wife bullshit,” Liam said firmly. “Now, go ask your mum and Lexi if you could get me the same care from the couch at home. Those beds in medbay suck.”

Sara gave him an Alliance-style salute. “On it.”

She crossed the aisle and found her mom and Lexi right where they’d promised to be. Lexi sighed when she saw Sara entering the room so soon.

“Really,  _ already _ ?” Lexi said, eyes narrowed. She turned her wrath on Mom. “I thought you made it clear to both of them that he needs to stay in the medbay? Why is she already here, begging?”

Mom sighed. “I  _ did _ tell her. Don’t look at me.”

“Hey,” Sara said, holding up her hands like she was being attacked. “Liam knows he needs bed rest. Just hear me out?”

“You clearly won’t be dropping it until we do,” Lexi said said, huffing. “Spill whatever it is.”

“Well,” Sara said. “Liam knows that he needs bedrest, but he-- _ we _ were hoping the bedrest could be at home, like, on our couch, and not in the medbay.” Sara fixed her eyes on Mom. “Come on, Mom, you know what it’s like to be cooped up in a hospital room more than anyone.” She refused to clasp her hands together like the beggar she was, but it was pretty tempting. “He won’t be running a marathon, he’ll either be in our room or on the couch, and he’ll only be getting up to use the bathroom. Mom, you can stay in our guest room if you want to enforce the bedrest rule. I will wash the sheets and dust the room myself.”

Mom sighed. “Not sure.” Her expression twitched. “What if I don’t want to put up with all the PDA I might have to deal with from you two.”

Sara sighed. “ _ Why _ me? I get one parent who wouldn’t know a joke if it danced in front of him wearing a giant poofy ballgown--”

Both Mom and Lexi laughed.

”--And another who makes it her life’s mission to crank out as many jokes as humanly possible.” She was only teasing; she loved her mom’s sense of humor, it was probably where she got her own. “But yeah, fine, we’ll save the necking for when he’s better. So, can we? Huh?” She bounced a little on the balls of her toes and Sara was reminded of when she and Scott had been 13 and had begged Mom to take them to a concert with their favorite band.

The look on Mom’s face was the same as it had been then.

“Fine,” Mom sighed. “I know the feeling of being stuck in a hospital bed better than most, and better for him to pick his place of recovery than for us to suddenly find you both gone. Oh, and Scott is coming. I don’t like the implications of that Advent group’s ambush. I want another gun at the house. A home is more valuable than a spaceship after all. Anyway, if you agree to those terms, it’s a deal.”

“YES!” Sara said, pumping a fist in the air. She practically danced back into the medbay. “Guess who’s going  home? Guess who’s going home?”

Liam burst into laughter at the sight of Sara sashaying her way into the medbay. She planted a kiss on his lips before she continued, “Mom and Scott are coming too, but no PDA. That too much for you?”

She had to admit that her happiness was dented somewhat by Scott coming. Things had been at such odds between them lately—what if this rocked the boat more?

“I can deal with the in-laws and no PDA as long as I’m in the comfort of my own house,” Liam said. “I’ve already been thinking about the movies we want to see.  _ A Trail of Hope _ is good one. Perfect for being stuck on bedrest. Three hours long!”

Sara rolled her eyes. “Liam, that is a  _ war _ movie! Maybe I just want to cuddle and watch a romantic comedy?” it was hard to be excited about a combat movie when it felt like all she did was get in fights on a daily basis.

“Yes, but the plot is so good it rips at your soul,” Liam said, placing a hand to his heart.

Sara couldn’t keep the laughter at bay. “Maybe I like my soul whole! Only thing I think of when I think of ripped souls are villains!”

“Maybe I’m a villain. Making you watch movies with feeling,” Liam said, winking at her and unable to keep a straight face any longer. “Anyway, there’s no need for you to keep hovering over me, Sara. I’ll be fine. Grab anything we’ll need from the  _ Tempest  _ so we can be ready to get out of here when the ship docks. Eos. Man, I can’t wait to be home.”

Seeing the big grin on Liam’s face as he talked about movies and home, Sara knew that talking to Mom and Lexi about Liam being able to go home was the best choice. Such a wonderful man shouldn’t have to be locked away in a medbay, like a sun-loving plant forced into a dark corner to die.

Sara packed the things she knew she and Liam would need at ease, toothbrush, hairbrush, favorite weapons. The one thing Sara didn’t pack was her newly-started Liam box. She knew he wasn’t likely to be the best of patient’s for her mom and the last thing she wanted was for him to stumble onto it while bored.

It took longer to reach Eos than it did to gather their necessities. Once they landed, Scott pushed Liam in a wheelchair to Sara and Liam’s home.

“Welcome home, bro,” Scott said, finally parking him in the living room.

“Awesome, we’re finally here,” Liam said, grinning as he moved to the sofa. “Don’t really see why I needed that. I’ve got a bumped head, not a sprained ankle.”

Mom laughed. “What if you fainted? If you crash and burn, mister, I want you crashing while you’re already sitting down.”

“Uh, yes ma’am,” Liam said. Judging by his expression, he was not eager to have Mom as one of his caregivers. Sara didn’t blame him, stuck with a doctor looking after him even while recovering at home. “So, I am totally confined to just the couch and bed, right? No getting up to watch the stars late and night or going on a morning run to watch the sun come up over the lake?”

“I know the guilt-tripping in those words because I used to spring similar poetry on Alec when I was having a good day,” Mom said. “Don’t think you can pull all that on me. I know you’re going to want to be out and about Liam, but  _ yes _ , you need to stay put.”

“Aww, man,” Liam said, leaning his head back onto some of the couch pillows in defeat. “You’re as bad as my mum. It looks like I can’t win. Fine. You have my word, I won’t leave my bed or the couch until you or Lexi say so.”

“Good,” Mom said. “Now, I’m going to get a cup of tea on. We’ve all had a lot going on lately and could use the rest. I’ll leave it to you three to decide how we spend the rest of our evening once I’m back.”

The Ryder twins and Liam decided on a board game, which they got set up while Mom was making the tea. Once she returned, they got started and played a game involving a die roll that kept them busy for three hours straight. The game went well, until, right as Sara was about to win, Calvin came charging over to bring Scott his ball to throw. Liam had attempted to hide a yawn as he put his men back into place on the board, only to be spotted by Mom.

At that point, Mom stood up, reminding everyone how important getting a good night’s sleep was, especially making the point to drill it into Liam that he needed the sleep for his head to heal. They all knew better than to argue with Ellen Ryder, and headed to bed.

Sara had trouble sleeping that night. Liam tossed and turned, his shuffling keeping her from falling asleep. An hour later, once he was actually asleep, he woke her up with a nightmare, and she took it upon herself to wake him up. They had another chat about Liam’s dreams, concluded there was not much they could do about it until the terrorists were caught, and went back to bed.  

Eventually, she must have fallen asleep, because later in the night she was woken up by their dog, Calvin, barking.

“Urgggh,” Liam groaned. He was so tired he sounded drunk. “Hey, Sar, did you give Calvin the memo about needing a full night’s rest for my brain to heal? You heard your mum. A lack of sleep  _ could _ seriously damage my brain.”

Sara  started to smirk at Liam’s joke, when a pained howl tore through the darkness.

“Oh no,” Sara said, biting her lip. She should go check on the dog. He meant a lot to both of them. “I’m going to check on Cal, make sure he didn’t hurt himself somehow. You go back to bed, all right?”

Liam sat up, his eyes narrowed. “But what if it’s a home invasion? Saw it as a cop sometimes, dogs can smell bad eggs.”

Aw, Liam was cute when he was he worried. Sara kissed the tip of his nose. “If there is a villain stupid enough to mess with the pathfinder when everyone knows what I’m capable of, then I’ll be sure to fry them, Kosta. You want those eggs scrambled eggs or sunny side up?”

Liam snorted. “You are terrible, Sara. Now, go check on our dog.”

It wasn’t until Sara stepped out into the hall that she fully admitted to herself that she feared there might be an intruder. Sure, sometimes dogs got spooked by random things, but the bomb at the wedding and the ambush had her on edge. Maybe this was a direct move. Come and get her up close and in person, taking vengeance into their own hands.

Sara heard growling from the living room and found Calvin, laying on the ground in pain, growling at a lone masked figure.

“Who are you?” Sara said. Not having thought to grab a gun, Sara aimed a biotic explosion at him. He rolled away from her biotics, the blue charge narrowly missing him. He aimed a kick at Sara’s legs and she flung herself out of the way, slamming into the wall. A picture of her and Liam after Meridian trembled on the wall, before falling to the floor. She ducked in time before it hit the ground, glass shattering everywhere. Damn, she hoped SAM had a copy of that stored somewhere, she liked that photo.

Noticing her attacker approach her again, Sara flung up a biotic barrier as he  aimed a powerful kick at her head. His reaction was almost cartoonish as he slammed into the barrier; she might have laughed if she wasn’t fighting for her life. Taking advantage of him being sprawled out in pain against the barrier (and one of his feet having twisted in an odd angle in the process), she grabbed her assailant and tackled him to the ground, where he landed with a hard thud.

Sara threw the last of her energy into throwing up a stasis field to trap her assailant, but she tired quickly.

Fortunately, Mom, Sara, and Liam appeared in the hallway, lights flickering on. Mom shook with fury as she glared at the intruder, Scott looked disappointed to have missed out on all the fun, and Liam looked triumphant to have been proven right in his theory that it was a home invasion.

Scott, stepped over some of the mess from the fight, and helped Sara strengthen her barrier. She sighed with relief. It was moments like these when she was glad Scott was a biotic, too.

“You should have came and got me,” Scott said, an accusing tone in his voice. “I missed all the fun,”

Mom pointed a stern finger at Scott. “This isn’t a game, young man, so don’t you  _ dare _ think for even a moment that I’m validating you in what I’m about to say next.” She turned on Sara. “But your brother is right. You should have woken Scott. What if this man had a gun? What if he had shot you?”

“I don’t use guns,” the assailant said, sounding slightly offended. “I fight solely with my hands, lady.”

“And you!” Mom’s fury seemed to swell times five as she glared at the intruder. “Breaking into my family’s home, attacking my daughter. I ought to wring your neck! And I  _ would _ if we didn’t need the information wasting away in that brain of yours.” She was still trembling with anger. “Liam, do me a favor and get us backup to deal with this scumbag.”

Mom was not in a mood to be argued with, so Liam hurried out of the room presumably to contact the  _ Tempest _ about what was going on or the Nexus.

Mom took a deep breath, still looking pissed off.

“I’ll go and see if I can find out how he got in,” Mom glared deeply at the intruder. “... And if he has little friends camping out on the property in case he failed.” She headed to their weapons locked and grabbed a rifle.

Sara raised her eyebrows. “You’ll be okay, right?” She had came so close to losing Mom that even louder sirens went off in her brain than whenever Scott wanted to go with her somewhere. Couldn’t  _ anyone _ in this family stay where she could keep an eye on them? If only Liam hadn’t hurt his head, he could be doing this instead of Mom. He had used to be a cop, this kind of thing would be right up his alley.

“I doubt he brought company, but I don’t want any potential loose ends,” Mom said, heading for the kitchen, which lead to the front door.

The assassin shuddered, watching Mom disappear with a look of terror and yet also respect on his face. “Glad she’s gone, that woman is scary.”

“Wait, so you just tried to kill me, and now you’re making conversation with me?” Sara’s jaw dropped open a little bit.

“Eh, I was only hired to kill you,” he shrugged. “It’s not like I can do anything to harm you right now. I really admire what you did for the cluster, stopping the Archon, and all. Nasty piece of work. I only agreed to kill you because I needed the money. It wasn’t personal. Strictly a professional matter. That protective mother of yours would do well to direct her anger at my employer.” He tilted his head conversationally. “Hey, your mom is a widow, right? Would I have any chance with her? Could she forgive the me-trying-to-kill-you thing if I put in enough effort?”

Sara and Scott looked at each other and burst out laughing. Maybe it was because the assassin  turned out to be a chatterbox or maybe it was the fact that he had interest in Mom, but something about the situation struck both of them as hilarious. For a few fleeting seconds, it was good to laugh with Scott again, and she forgot for a few moments they were fighting.

“So, I take that as a no?” the assassin asked, a disappointed frown on his face. “Ah, well, there are other fish in the sea.”

Sara cleared her throat. Time to take charge of this situation. “Not that this isn’t an interesting conversation, but what can you tell us about your employer? Do you know their name?”

The assassin clearly liked talking, he nodded his head eagerly. “I never saw their face, all the conversations were like with the Shadow Broker back home. A disguised voice and appearance.  But I do know what group they represented, they had no qualms about sharing that information.”

Sara bounced from one foot to the other. “It was Advent, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” the assassin said with a firm nod. “I was not given a name of an actual person I was talking to, only the group.”

“Did they give you any other information?” Scott asked. “Like a bank account number to receive your paycheck? A drop-location to visit once you had--” he shuddered, and narrowed his eyes at the assassin “--completed your assignment?” His expression hardened as he finished talking and Sara knew no matter how angry Scott might be at her right now, he was not about to forget that the man had tried to kill his sister. It was a pity they were both throwing all their energy into the stasis barrier or she would give Scott a hug. She decided to settle for teasing him.

“Aww, I’ll have to remember this touching moment the next time you complain when I finished the last of Mom’s zucchini bread, Scott. ‘ _ Oh, don’t be mad Scotty. Remember, how mad you were when an assassin tried to kill me? I could be dead instead of eating this last piece of bread.’ _ ”

Scott rolled his eyes. “Ass.”

“Hey, I’m your big sister, it’s--”

“Your job to tease me,” Scott said with another eyeroll.

“Uh, excuse me,” the assassin said. “Not to interrupt the sibling bonding, but you wanted information from me, Pathfinder? There’s a cave in some hills about thirty minutes away from the Initiative outpost here on Eos. I was told to met him there when I completed my mission. Or her, I suppose,” He gave Sara a winning smile. “I was bested by a woman after all. Wouldn’t want to deny your skills.”

Sara glared at him.

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, if I were you and trying to hunt down the person funding this contract, I would look there.”

The kitchen door opened and Liam escorted several security officers into the room. The Ryder twins removed the barrier and allowed Prodromos security to take him away, the assassin smoothly vowing that he would tell him all they wanted to know in exchange for lighter sentencing. Once security left, both men reached towards Sara for a hug, but Scott got there first.

Mom reentered, looking smug. “He out in by disabling the alarm. We should replace the one we had with something voice-activated or that needs a fingerprint scan.”

“Wake me up next time someone is trying to murder you sis,” Scott said, squeezing her tightly. “You don’t have to protect me all the time--” the resentment had came back into this voice “--just because I have issues because of Meridian doesn’t mean I’m not able to help you win a fight.”

Sara squeezed him back. “Sorry, Scotty.” But she made no promises things would be different next time and Sara did not miss the lines around Scott’s mouth hardening.

Sara turned to Liam and they flung their arms around each other.

“Given his personality,” Liam whispered in her ear. “I’d say he ended up more sunny-side up then scrambled, don’t you think?”

Sara burst into giggles and gave Liam a peck on the cheek. Honestly, if Scott hadn’t been here, she probably would have kissed his neck instead.

“We got him, either way,” Sara said, grinning at him.

#

The assassin would not yield anymore information other than what he had told the Ryder twins, no matter how Nexus security bribed or threatened him. The coordinates he had given them had not led to them being closer to solving the case; the cave was empty.

Perhaps he had been joking earlier about giving them information in exchange for a lighter sentence or maybe his employer had found a way to threaten him. There was no way to know. Tann  even threatened to sic a krogan on the man and nothing came of it. Sara was disappointed, but not shocked, but Liam seemed to be taking the news the hardest. He still talked about it while he and the Ryders ate breakfast two weeks after the break-in. His toast and eggs remained untouched on his plate.

“That man is the only lead we have right now, I  _ mean _ \--” Liam groaned and shoved his plate away. He stood up. “I’m going for a run. Being this angry isn’t good for me, and,” he nodded at the Ryders, “as far as I’m concerned, Sara’s my wife even if it’s not official. And all three of you deserve better than me storming around the house in a huff. I’ll be back when I’m in a better mood. Lunchtime, at the latest.” He glanced at Mom. “So glad I’ve got that clean bill of health and can be out and about again.”

Liam rinsed out his plate while he was up and Sara went over to him.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Sara said. “I’m angry about this too, I can be a shoulder to lean on, Liam.”

He shook his head. “I love you and all, Sar, but I’d do better on my own for the morning. Don’t want to take any of my negative feelings out on you. You deserve better than that, yeah?” Liam clapped her on the shoulder and headed out of the room. Sara still moved to head after him.

“Give him some space,” Scott said with a sigh. “I remember how I was after Meridian. It’s hard to feel good when you just want to be alone and you’ve got people breathing down your neck. He’ll be fine, sis. He just needs some time to clear his head.”

Sara bit her lip. How could she just let him go off on his own though? Maybe Scott was right. Maybe it was what he needed, but that didn’t make it any easier for her to let him go alone. “I know, but I still feel like I should be doing more.”

Scott walked over and squeezed her shoulder. “Yeah, coming from the woman who tried to take on all family-related worries and responsibilities after--” He glanced at Mom. “Well, you know. know you feel like it’s your job to make sure everyone around you is okay, but sometimes you need to take a deep breath and let people live their lives. Sometimes people need to work through their feelings alone.”

It infuriated her, but she knew he was right. She gave him a relieved smile. “Thanks. I--I really needed to hear that.” Despite Scott’s frostiness lately, she was relieved to hear her brother being supportive of her, being on her side. He could support her, even when he was angry at her. Guilt wormed its way into Sara’s heart. Scott was clearly hurt that she wouldn’t take him with her, and he was still going out of the way to make sure he had her back, despite his feelings.

It was time to talk.

“Scott, can we talk?” Sara asked. “About everything that’s been going on with us lately.”

Scott brightened, but paused, glancing at Mom. “You good here? I know Sara and I usually help you with the dishes.”

Mom laughed. “Your dad and I managed just fine when you chicks moved out. I can handle it, but,” she gave her children a mischievous smile, “don’t think either of you are getting out of it tomorrow. Go, have your chat.  I’ll be fine.”

The Ryder siblings left their mom in the kitchen and walked out to the deck. Sara laid down in the hammock, and Scott joined her. Sara grinned. This felt a lot like when they were kids and would read comics out on the back porch during the summer together. Scott always spoiled her favorites just to annoy her.

“I lied to you back on the  _ Tempest _ ,” Sara admitted, staring up at the cloudless sky. “I mean, you already know that, but I did. But you deserve an apology.” She swallowed. “It’s just that--it’s not that I don’t think we’d do well in combat, or that I’d do better with Vetra or Cora or whoever.” Her eyes filled up with tears. “Scott, I had to listen to the Archon torture you. I had to fight bot after fucking bot, knowing that you were in danger. Knowing that you needed me, and for the longest time--” Her throat closed up for a few seconds. She paused briefly and took a few deep breaths. “--I couldn’t do anything. More than losing everything the Initiative worked for, I was afraid that once he didn’t have need of you, that the Archon would kill you.” Tears streamed down her face, a lump grew in her throat. Scott seemed to understand though, he pulled her in for a hug.

“I can’t lose you, Scotty,” Sara said in between another sob. “I know you’re mad I’ve been shutting you out, but I just wanted to protect you.”

For a while, Scott didn’t say anything, just wrapped Sara in the tight kind of hug they had shared as sixteen-year-olds when they had found out about Mom’s illness. He didn’t need to say anything. That was the nice thing about having a twin--Scott knew her better than anyone. He knew she was sorry and that her intentions, however hurtful, were good. It was a mark of their relationship that he didn’t even tease her about it, just rubbed Sara’s back while she held onto him like he was the only life raft on a storm-tossed sea.

Finally, he whispered, “Don’t worry, Sar, I’ll be careful.”

#

Liam wasn’t back around noon like he said he might be. Sara tried not to worry, but did so despite her attempts.  _ How could she not? _ Everything bad that could happen always seemed to happen to her, so really, worrying about Liam was perfectly logical. She paced the living room, worry lines carving deep into her face.

“Oh, stop pacing dear, I’m sure he’s fine,” Mom said, frowning at Sara. “Watching you traipse about is making me stress, and you know Harry says I need to maintain low stress levels.” Mom got up, and put her hands on Sara’s shoulders. “Deep breath. In and out.” Sara tried it, sucking in a breath, and then letting out. Then another. “That’s my girl.” Mom gave her an encouraging smile. “Look, if there’s one thing I learned about being married to an N7, it’s that sometimes things happen you can’t predict. Maybe he found a kid wandering around out on the walking paths. Or maybe he’s planning something, you know how that man loves surprising you. Maybe he’s calmed down and is planning something romantic, huh?” She patted Sara on the shoulder. “Try and smile, sweetie, it’ll be all right. We’ll go and look for him if he’s not back in three hours, sound good?”

Sara nodded, straightening her posture a little. “Okay.”


	6. Chapter 6

It turned out Ellen was right to tell Sara not to worry, because at around 2:45, she finally got a message from Liam on her omni-tool.

_Sara, met me at this navpoint. Got something special planned, just the two of us._

The navpoint was out of the way enough that it must involve some kind of hiking. She changed into an old flannel shirt and some jeans, along with some boots.

One Sara had left, she tried hard not to feel a bit angry the whole drive. Really, he had been planning a date this whole time? She appreciated the romance, but for crying out loud, could he have not taken two seconds to let her know he was okay?

She still grumbled about this as she waved goodbye to Mom and Scott, and got into the rover.

She wished Scott was there for the ride. She could use a distraction from fuming about Liam as she drove. Her blood  boiled at the thought that he let hours pass without letting her know where he was. _How could he do that?_

She parked the car outside the cave that was located at the navpoint Liam had given, wondering what Liam had in mind. _Exploring a cave?_ They did that a lot on duty, maybe he’d found a waterfall or something.

Sara entered the cave, and turned on the light on her amour. Why didn’t see him?

“Liam?” Sara called. She was answered with nothing but the drip of stalactites. _Hmm, water. Maybe there’s a waterfall nearby!_ Sara progressed deep into the cave. Still no sign of him. “LIAM?!”

No answer. Alarm bells  started going off in Sara’s head. Liam would have made his presence known by now. Something was wrong. Her heart thudded against her ribcage and her hands shook. She had lost so much. She couldn’t lose Liam, too. Not when her life was finally starting to feel whole again, after _everything_.

Sara sent a quick message to Scott.

_No sign of Liam, come and get me if you don’t hear back from me in thirty._

No sooner had she removed her hand from her omni-tool than she felt a cloth press down over her mouth. As she struggled against the tight grip of her assailant, she realized they must have been cloaked. Otherwise, she would have seen them before they got to her.

_Sara,_ SAM said privately. _You should know that this rag contains a substance that is going to knock you out. There is presently nothing I can do to stop it, but I will try and see if I can revive you and--_

Sara grew too dizzy to pay much heed to SAM anymore. Rest. Rest would be so good.

Her eyes fluttered shut and she slumped into her captor’s arms.

#

“Sara! Sara!”

_Liam?_

“Liam?” Sara mumbled. Her arms and legs feft like lead and she just wanted to sleep. She could feel arms around her. They felt like Liam’s, imparted a feeling of protection, and she snuggled a bit closer.

“Sara, you need to get up, _now_!”

SAM’s voice rang over the team’s public channel. “She is still delirious from the drug they gave her. I am working to stimulate her senses as we speak.”

Indeed as SAM said this, Sara felt as though she had been given a burst of adrenaline and she felt well enough to hold a conversation. As much as she liked her head cradled in Liam’s lap, she sat up and looked around, blinking off her unconsciousness. They appeared to be nestled in a slanted cave tunnel, bars surrounding both the entrance and the exit. Just outside the north entrance to the barred tunnel, was a filing cabinet and a messy-looking desk--maybe where whoever the jailor was did their paperwork?

She felt her arm for her omni-tool but found it wasn’t there. Damn, guess she wouldn’t be calling for backup anytime soon.

“What’s going on?” Sara said. “The last thing I remember is being drugged. Did they get you while you were running? Or did  you decide to explore a bit and wind up here and then get attacked? I _knew_ I should have came with you on your walk.”

She felt relieved, more than anything. She had known that Liam not contacting her for hours was a bit odd. Everything made sense now.

Liam held up his hands as a shield. “One question at a time. They took me while I was out walking this morning. I’ve been stuck here for-- Actually, without my omni-tool, I’m not really sure what time it is. Probably a few hours, at least.

“I got a navpoint and a message from you sounding like you wanted a date,” Sara said. “It lead me to this cave.”

Liam frowned. “That is some suspense-thriller level shit. They must have looked up our message history on my omni-tool and came up with an excuse they thought you would buy.”

Sara groaned. “Why take you and lure me here anyway? Have you heard anyone talk about what they want?”

“I haven’t heard much, but all their grand statements, like planting a bomb, injuring Bradley, in order to make some statement against the Nexus didn’t work, so did sending an assassin so they took me to bring you to them. They think we’re good and trapped, but we  know all the best vids. There’s an escape route somewhere.” Liam gave her a knowing grin.

Sara returned his smile. “From your tone, I take it you have a plan for getting us out of this cell, Liam?”

“I do,” he said, grinning at her. “The guard left his keys on his desk, I bet one of your biotic pulls could get them. Then, once we’re out, we can use cloaking to escape and bring backup.”

“No need to escape for backup. I messaged Scott just before I got here to show up with backup if I don’t message him in thirty. Once he gets here, we’ll find out who is in charge of this thing, and see if any of them can be reasoned with. Those people aren’t kett, after all. They were our own. But for now we need weapons and armor, which means we need to make a getaway.”

“We can only hope. Talk later, escape now, yeah?” Liam pointed to the keys on the desk. “See if you can get the keys so we can make a grand jailbreak.”

Sara stuck a hand outside the bars and focused all of her energy on moving the keys towards her with a biotic pull. The keys flew off the desk and towards the cell, landing close enough for Sara to reach down and grab the keys.

“And Mom always feels so bad that Scott and I ended up as biotics because she was exposed to eezo early in her pregnancy while researching,” Sara said, shaking her head. “Sure is handy right now.” She walked over to the door and began twisting the key as best she could without being able to see the lock. Finally, the door swung open.

Sara hid the keys to the jail at the bottom of a desk drawer beneath all kinds of paperwork--the worst mess to dig through if you were looking for something in a hurry.

“There, make us a bit harder to throw back in jail,” she said, pleased with her handywork. “Okay, SAM, sentinel profile , please.”

Sara glanced around the room. “Liam, do you know where they put my omni-tool? I could sent Scott a navpoint to track our location.”

Liam jabbed a finger at a different desk drawer. “They didn’t lock it up or anything. I think they figured you were good and secure.” He smirked at her, clearly pleased that his escape plan worked.

Sara walked over to the desk and pulled out her omni-tool, securing on her wrist. She opened the interface, unsurprised to find Scott spammed her with messages.

_Scott:You get there safely?_

_You okay?_

_Sar?_

_SIS?!_

_Okay, I’m coming for you, bringing lots of loaded weapons and friends._

Sara sent Scott a navpoint to track their location, along with a note: _Sorry for scaring you. Not to worry you with this next bit, but they captured me. Don’t worry, we’ve escaped and are heading for the exit. I’ve send you our location._

A reply instantly lit up her screen.

_You’re safe! I’ll let Mom know, she was worried sick when we didn’t hear from you._

Sara’s stomach twisted with guilt imaging both Mom and Scott back at home, wondering where she was and if she was safe. _Another reason for Advent to go down._

“All right, Scott knows where to find me and that I’m safe, let’s get out of here,” Sara said.

Sara triggered her stealth generator; Liam did the same. The pair vanished from view. As they left the room,  an idea came to her. She accessed her omni-tool and programmed a trap that, if triggered, would release a gas that would temporarily paralyze anyone who came through the area.

“Oh, that is wicked, Sar,” Liam said, beaming at her. “The more people who come to check on us to see where we’ve gone, the more we’ll take out without having to do a thing. Brilliant!”

“Might as well give ourselves a few advantages,” Sara said. “Now, let’s just focus on getting up to the surface.”

Thanks to the wonderful invention that was cloaking, the few guards who passed did not even notice Sara and Liam creeping by. She ached to attack them, but they couldn’t take the chance without weapons and armor. Besides if they killed them, it would just prove to Advent the Nexus was evil. When they neared the cave’s entrance, Sara heard voices. She ducked behind a rock. She could feel a warm presence against her side that she knew was Liam, ready to take those guys on.

“Remember, everyone be careful, we don’t know what we’re going to find here.” Scott said weapon loaded and ready. Vetra, Cora, Peebee, Drack, and Jaal stood with him.

“It’s only our team!” Sara whispered to Liam. She turned off her stealth generator and stood, holding her hands out so they would know she wasn’t an enemy. Liam followed suit.

“It’s only us!” Sara called, as at least six guns turned towards her and Liam. “We managed to escape, we’re okay.”

The group ran to them, and Scott pulled Sara into a hug.

“You’re safe,” Scott said, holding onto her as though  she might melt at any second.

“Didn’t know if you had a weapon, so I brought extras,” Scott said, holding out weapons to the couple. “We’ve also got some armor at the foot the cave, go suit up and get ready.”

“Aww, so thoughtful, baby brother,” Sara said, checking to make sure it was good to go. Once they were suited up, she cleared her throat. “All right, so it’s now or never, we’re taking this place from Advent.”

Cora spoke up. “Sara, what do you want us to do with people who surrender?”

“I say we kill them all,” Drack said. “Not like they didn’t hesitate to try and kill all of us.” Judging by the look on his face, he was not about to forget that his granddaughter and great-grandchildren had been at Sara’s wedding, too.

“Anyone who surrenders is to be held and  to the Nexus to await sentencing. But anyone who attacks with brute force-- Well, obviously we have to defend ourselves,” she cleared her throat. “But those people aren’t kett. They were only driven to this extreme because they were abandoned and left without hope. We offer the chance to stand down to whoever we can.”

“Ah, that’s no fun,” Drack said, but with a tone that suggested he wasn’t going to challenge Sara’s authority after all they had been through together.

“We’ll stick to the plan,” Vetra said. “What’s your goal, Sara?”

“See if I can find whoever is in charge. Offer a truce. Goods, services, and official sovereignty for whoever wasn’t a part of the terrorist scheme if they turn over themselves and anyone else who is a guilty party,” Sara said, shrugging. “Those people only became murderers because I turned my back on them. I know most of you think we should kill them all, but sparing whoever we can isn’t about them.” She sighed. “It’s about me wanting a clear conscious. I have to give them a chance to repent or I won’t be able to live with myself. Now let’s go. Scott, Liam, you’re coming with me to see if we can find a route to whoever is in charge here.”

“That’ll be easy to find,” Scott said with an empty laugh. “It’ll be the place that is the most guarded.” He fixed his gun on the entrance of the cave, a serious look in his eyes, telling Sara without words that he was ready for some payback.

She couldn’t really argue with that. “Everyone else, just focus on making as big of a distraction you can to buy Scott, Liam, and me some time, got it?”

They  nodded as the team headed downwards towards the twisting and turning tunnels. Sara had a plan. It was time to head back to the cell.

“Cloak,” Sara said to the two of them. “I want to be discreet.”

They nodded and disappeared. When they he area where Sara and Liam were being held, she found two bodies collapsed in what looked like guard uniforms. Her trap had made such quick work of them, they hadn’t had time to even pull out any weapons.

“Nice work,” Scott said as Sara began pouring over the jailor’s desk. “Sis, what are you looking for?”

“Just point us at what you need, Sara,’ Liam agreed. Despite the danger, she felt strangely felt calm. She had two of the people she trusted most by her side.  Scott, Liam, and she could do this. They would have her back.

“A map, of course,” Sara said, cursing whichever guard left the desk so unorganized. It had been a blessing when she had needed to hide the keys, but now it merely  frustrated her. If the circumstances were different, she would reorganize this desk herself.

Scott flung open a door on the other side of the jail, while Liam dug through a filing cabinet. Both were careful to avoid Sara’s trap while walking around. Sara wished they had more time, this could be a good time to research their enemy, but Drack, Peebee, Vetra, Cora, and Jaal’s distraction would only buy them so much time before their enemies swarmed them.

“Eureka!” Scott said, he emerged from the other room, holding up a piece of paper in triumph. “I found something, Sara!” Scott laid it on the table, and smoothed out a map of the caves.

“We need to figure out where their headquarters are,” Sara said. This place had a lot of rooms. Down several layers of twisting tunnels, Sara saw a dot labeled “Mayor’s Quarters.”

“I think this is the person we need to talk to,” she said. She was about to say more, when a figure showed up on the other side of the jail.

“Intruders!” They turned on their heel and headed back the way they had came.

“Well, I guess they know we’re here, now,” she said, stuffing the map in a pocket of her armor. “Let’s go. Stick to cover, and don’t take any risks. This is my problem, I won’t have either of you dying  for it.”

Sara hoped they would listen to her. She knew that Scott was restless for revenge and Liam--he was sensitive and emotional even on normal days. It was going to be hard for him not to light up everyone in sight.

Sara lead the group into the tunnel they sought. The tunnel branched out into an open rocky area. Sara motioned for Scott and Liam to follow her behind a boulder while she took in what they were dealing with so they could form some kind of plan.

The large area-- W _hat did someone even call large open areas in caves?_ Sara thought back to some of the rare times as a child Dad had taken her spelunking and regretted never having asked him.   _Dad_ would have known the correct terminology. She tucked the depressing thought away into the back corner of her mind, where other regrets about Dad resided, and turned her thoughts back on the mission.  

The cavern narrowed off into another tunnel. Six guards patrolled the area.

“Don’t know about you guys, but I think stealth is our best opinion,” Liam said. He looked at Sara, clearly wanting to voice an idea. She nodded.

“Not a bad idea,” Sara said, “but I used up any traps like that I had back at the jail.”

Scott’s eyes lit up as he dug through his sheathed weapons and he pulled out a small round object. He held it out in his hands for the group to see.

“I got this from a Krogan a few weeks back,” Scott smirked. “It’s basically a stink bomb. You throw it, your enemies start gagging, they faint, you slip past while they’re all taking a nice little nap.”

Sara beamed at both of them. “Scotty, you get the honors.”

Scott looked happier than he had been in weeks. “Okay, just don’t go rushing forward until I say so, or else you’ll get caught up in it too.”

Sara and Liam nodded. Scott tossed the bomb at the patrolling guards and a green gas filled the air. The guards began to cough.

“We--we been--a-a-attacked--” one of them said through their wheezing before finally collapsing. The others made a few similar statements, one even had time to pull out a gun, but soon they had all fainted.

“Let’s go,” Scott said. The trio moved onward toward their destination

As they headed down the tunnel leading deeper underground, eventually it opened again. Sara heard a thudding noise coming their way. Whatever approached, it was large. Sara swallowed.

“Prepare yourselves.”

Fortunately, Scott had them covered, and flung up a biotic barrier, slightly larger and more protective than most thanks to SAM enhancing his physiology. “Stay close.”

Sara’s heart nearly leapt to her throat when she saw the Hydra lumbering towards them. If this thing hurt Scott and Liam--

“Be careful!” she yelled. She fired her cryo beam and began worked on freezing the turret arms as best she could, Liam shot at the same arm she had targeted. Unfortunately, it was a strong arm, and Scott’s biotic shield was beginning to flicker.

“Hurry up, Sara, I can’t keep this barrier up much longer! SAM is the only thing giving me the strength to hold it.” Sara could see sweat beading to her brother’s forehead. His struggle renewed her determination.

She kept ice flowing at the arm; Liam tossed a few grenades at it. Finally, the left arm exploded, leaving the mech with only one remaining offensive weapon. The barrier strengthened, likely a result of having one arm and not two raining rounds upon them. Rejuvenated knowing Scott’s barrier could hold now, Sara flung a few biotic explosions at it before switching back to her tech powers. Liam’s rifle poured rounds into it. Finally, the other arm exploded and the Hyra fell to the ground, defeated, smoking pouring out of the metal shell.

“No time to waste.” Sara said to Liam and Scott. Her brother breathed heavily after the huge biotic shield he’d had to maintain. They ran down the tunnel, before they got small opening with a sign, which read, “Mayor Henderson’s Living Quarters.”

_Finally_ , the person who had started all this trouble had a name. Mayor Henderson, whoever they were. Sara hoped they could be talked down.

“Finally,” Scott said, leaning against the rough stone wall as he panted. “I couldn’t take much more of that.”

“Let’s get some fucking payback,” Liam agreed, eyes gleaming with hatred as he glared at the name on the wall.

“But remember,” she said, panting. “We kill this person, we turn them into a martyr for their followers. We capture them, nothing more.”

Both Scott and Liam looked frustrated at this order, but they both nodded in understanding.

Once Scott and Liam got their breath back, Sara lead the way down the tunnel, and into a small open space where their aggressor waited. Her home was a roomy cavern, with a cot laid out. There was a hole in rock roof which allowed light to stream in. It was not so huge that there wasn’t space to avoid any rain. Sara also spotted a small pond with a tiny water filter. Sitting in the corner, near a weapons locker, was a malnourished-looking blond woman. She glanced up as the trio entered, pulled out a gun, and aimed it at Sara. They were just as quick to aim their weapons at the woman.

“I see you’ve finally found me, pathfinder,” Mayor Henderson said. “I had trouble getting a hold of you. Assassins, even huge statements like bombs and or attacking your associates didn’t seem to work. You really need to clear your schedule a bit more.”

_Wit._ Sara could work with wit.

She shrugged. Sara wracked her brains for a solution. Maybe talking could buy her some time, since they both had their weapons drawn at each other. “Maybe try calling and scheduling an appointment with me first.”

Henderson raised her eyebrows. “I already scheduled an appointment with you, remember? The one where you left my people to die. The environment meant more to you than human lives. Some pathfinder! Heleus will be better off without you!” Henderson’s hands trembled with fury as she spoke. The gun shook in her arms.

Sara winced at her words. Even though everyone had said what had happened wasn’t her fault, she felt like it was.

“Hey!” Scott snapped. “This is not solely my sister’s fault. Anyone prepared for the survival of the people under their charge wouldn’t allow their fate to be determined by others. Being a good leader means that you have a backup plan.”

“Yeah,” Liam agreed. “A good leader learns how to lead in a crisis.’

Her heart swelled with affection for her family. Meanwhile, Henderson’s face flickered. Clearly, their words struck a chord with her, even if she didn’t want to admit it. She straightened her back as she chose her next words.

“Maybe, but the Nexus left us to die,” she glared at Sara. “You never looked in on us afterward, never checked in on our settlement.”

Okay, now Sara was getting frustrated. “Yeah, because I was busy trying to make this cluster habitable, fighting hostile aliens, making peace with the angara-.”

Henderson’s eyes narrowed. “Nexus arrogance! If you had all perished at the wedding like you were supposed to, we could have proper leaders, who actually care about the people.”

“And that’s you, is it?” Sara’s voice came out in a snarl. “Someone who thinks the best way to deal with people she doesn’t agree with is to murder them, and screw the innocent casualties? There were _children_ at my wedding who could have died because of your plan!”

Henderson lowered her gun, looking a bit worried at that statement. “I assumed it would be an adults-only wedding.”

Sara was about to make a joke about assuming, when a figure appeared in the tunnel entrance. The trader Lucy T’Vexa came bursting in; she tackled Henderson to the ground. The asari had changed little since their last meeting, perhaps a little scruffier, but she somehow looked like she had seen a few square meals since their last meeting.

“Don’t kill the pathfinder!” She said, panting, clearly out of breath. “Don’t… Don’t do it!”

The gun flew out of the mayor’s hands and onto the ground several feet away. Pinned down by the asari, she had no choice but to listen.

“Clearly I’m not going anywhere,” Advent’s mayor spat. “So, talk.”

The other woman reached into a coat pocket and pulled out the bag of seeds Sara gave her for free. It was almost empty, which suggested to Sara that she had been busy planting. Despite the danger they were all in, she couldn’t help but smile.

“I remember you,” Sara said. “I gave you those seeds. You’re with Advent?”

The newcomer smiled at Sara. “Indeed, you did, and that’s why I’m coming to your aid. Just call me your guardian angel.” She bit her lip. “And yes, I am with Advent.” She lowered her head in shame. “Not all of us think like the loonies at this base. I heard more extreme members talking about kidnapping your fiancé and came to help.” She glanced back down at the woman she held captive. “Listen, _Mayor_ . The pathfinder was going to trade those seeds for a fancy new biotic amp. Instead, when I vented to her about my problems, she gave them to me _for free_. I know you don’t trust her, but there is good in her.”

Something in the mayor’s face softened and it became clear to Sara in that moment this was someone Mayor Henderson was willing to listen to. Or maybe it was Lucy _and_ the unexpected news that children had been at her wedding. Henderson’s mind could be changed. Maybe they could win the day with no more bloodshed.

“Maybe… maybe Advent and the pathfinder could negotiate,” Henderson said, hesitantly. She stared up at Sara. “What terms do you offer my people, pathfinder?”

Tension left Sara’s shoulders and the threesome slowly approached Lucy and the mayor.

“Anyone who has engaged in acts of violence needs to turn themselves in,” Sara said. “But anyone who has just been, I don’t know, farming or something the past three years gets a free pass. They can trade with the Nexus and be recognized as a proper state, complete with diplomatic ties.”

“Let go of me,” the mayor told Lucy. Henderson pulled herself off the ground and opened the interface of her omni-tool. “This is Mayor Henderson speaking.” Sara could only assume her speech was going to the omni-tools of other Advent extremists. “Everyone who has been engaged in project 207 needs to turn themselves over to Nexus authority immediately. I am negotiating the terms of our surrender now.” She then clasped her hands behind her back. “All right pathfinder, take me in.”

The trio moved in to grab the woman and escorted her to the exit.

#

Sara happily allowed Tann and Nexus security deal with Advent now that she had pretty much sliced off that head of the monster. She spent the majority of the next couple of days not worrying about anything and just doing things like watching movies with Liam or watching Scott paint. She couldn’t believe her luck when she put her head down at night without worry about what she’d find when she woke up in the morning. She felt safe, for the first time in weeks. It was a good feeling. Liam seemed to be feeling better, too, after they took down Advent, he didn’t have another nightmare about what had happened.

On the back porch, Sara reclined in a lounge chair, watching the sunset paint the sky as Calvin panted at her feet. The door opened and Mom came outside.

“Come inside and put on something pretty, we’ve received an invite to a party,” Mom said. She was wearing a light blue sundress that matched her eyes, and Sara knew just from that fact that her mom was already ready that she was going if she wanted to or not.

“What’s it for?” Sara asked. “Can’t I just enjoy the sunset? It’s a nice day, I don’t want to socialize.”

“It’s for _you_ ,” Mom said, giving Sara a you-are-going-if-you-like-it-or-not Mom look. “A celebration for kicking the Advent extremists in the teeth.” She gave Sara a pleading look. “There won’t be many people there, just me, Scott, and a lot of people from the _Tempest_. It definitely won’t have the huge guest list your wedding had, I promise.”

She’d invited nearly 200 people to her wedding just to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes. Mom knew how much it frustrated Sara to have to invite loads of people she hadn’t cared about to her wedding.

But if this party was just her family and the _Tempest_ crew--

“All right,” Sara said, standing up. “I’ll go. You don’t have to nag.” She hurried inside to find a sundress only to realize Liam wasn’t in their room. “Mom, where’s Liam?”

“He’s at the party helping to get things set up,” Mom said from the bathroom down the hall where she was finishing getting ready.

“Huh, he must have left via the front door, I didn’t see him,” Sara said as she picked out a lavender dress from her closet. She was a bit hurt that he hadn’t told her goodbye when he left. “And to think I thought he was just watching the _Pirates of the Caribbean_ remake for the twentieth time.”

Once she had her dress on and a pair of cute white sandals to match, she grabbed her purse, and she and Ellen left the house.

“Where is this party?” Sara asked as they climbed into her vehicle.

“Mayor Bradley’s homestead,” Mom said. “You’ve been there before, remember?”

Sara wracked her brains. “Big lake property? Or am I confusing it with that big fancy house Tann built?”

Mom wrinkled her nose at the mention of Tann. “No, you’re thinking of the right place.”

By the time they pulled up, the sun had gone down, leaving nothing but a full moon and a smattering of stars in the sky. Sara was a tiny bit confused about how a party this late in the evening--no, at _night_ , was going to work, but maybe it was one of those things were the goal was to just drink and dance a lot, no swimming or anything that would require daylight.

When she arrived in the backyard, she gasped at the sight. It was lit with tons of hanging lanterns. There was a wooden dance floor with a DJ a few yards away from the lake, and right in front of her there was a path of candles leading to an altar where Liam waited ... for her.

Sara turned to her mom, amused.

“This is not what I think it is,” she said. “This is why you dragged me out of the house?”

Mom smirked. “Well, the last time you tried to get married, having a huge crowd was a bit of a hindrance. Liam had the idea that maybe we should just do something small, maybe disguise it has a party for some other reason.”

Sara admired the cleverness of the idea, even if her inner control freak was… well, freaking out.

“This is wonderful, and romantic, and so sweet of all of you,” she said, feeling like every word was stammered. “I--I had no idea! What are we eating? What music will we be listening to? Should I go with the vows I had written down or are we going with something traditional since this is last minute-?”

Ellen put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “Sara, breathe. Don’t worry about the details and just enjoy the surprise, if you’re game for it, that is.” She held out her hand to Sara. “Shall we give this another try?”

It was difficult for her to let go of all the smaller details, but she reached out and took her Mom’s arm regardless and they headed down the aisle. The smaller audience relieved some of Sara’s sudden onset anxiety. The small number of friends and family made the occasion so much more special. There was no Tann, nor the Moshae. The most off- _Tempest_ it got was Gil and Drack and Vetra having invited Jill and Meri; Kesh,  Vorn, and their children; and Sid. Sara could feel the knot in her stomach loosening as they finally reached the altar. Ellen squeezed her hand and went to sit in the front row with Scott.

“You ass!” Sara hissed at Liam. “You didn’t say a word about this.”

Liam smirked. “So, sue me. I wanted to surprise you. Do you like it? You look really pretty, by the way.”

Sara blushed. “Thanks. And, yes, I do. This is really romantic.”

Liam took her hands and squeezed them. “Good, then that’s all that matters.” Liam grinned at August. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

August nodded at Liam and began to speak.

“Sara… For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve done so much for other people. Whenever any of us on the _Tempest_ had a problem, we could go to you and we didn’t have to worry admitting to our boss if we fucked up or just plain needed help with something important to us. You never judged us. You always dropped everything to be there, even when you were grieving your dad and worried about your brother being in a coma. You had the weight of the entire Initiative on your shoulders, and you never once complained about it,” Liam squeezed her hands. “I want to take away that burden. I know the kett threat isn’t over, but when they come--and we know they will--I don’t want you to feel like you have to bust your ass alone. From now on, we’re a family. I want us to be able to go to each other for support, a shoulder to lean on, even just a laugh, and I want us to still feel that way in twenty years.”

_Wow, what a speech._

“I don’t know if anything I can say would top that,” Sara said. Everyone laughed. “But yeah, at least my speech-giving skills include making everyone laugh.” More laughter. Sara cleared her throat. “But seriously, Liam, you. When I’m with you, I feel like I have a protector. Someone who always has my back, and who knows just how to make me smile and laugh. I feel like every day I get to spend with you is a day just spent basking in the pure presence of love and goodness, and I want that every day. Your work ethic, your optimism, your drive to do what’s right. Now, enough talking, we’ve waited way too long for this.” She wrapped her arms around Liam and planted a kiss on his lips, unable to believe how perfect this was. The night sky, the beautiful setup August had leant them, her friends and family here.

_Get married, mission accomplished._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is a wrap! If you enjoyed it I would _love_ to know how you liked it! I'm two thirds of the way done with a Harry Potter AU, so if you liked this fic and enjoy HP too, and want more of my writing, be sure to head to my profile and click that subscribe button so you get an email when that starts posting. :)


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